Day Twelve at the LCT Directors Lab

Macbeth presentations were held this morning, and my project went first, since I was letter "A". My cast stayed true to the kind of work we had been doing, and adjusted in subtle ways to the presence of a larger audience. Anne announced "Group A" and I said nothing. The room became quiet and after a few moments the actors began, as they usually do if I just stop talking.

It is worth describing what I remember happening. All of the actors "did" the things or "were the way" they have been exploring doing and being, but no action was ever actually was fixed, though we had developed an "outline" through our experience together (but not by much explicit discussion or direction).

Often things happened simultaneously or gave way to solo or pair moments. Portions of text were skipped, overlapped, or brought back. Contemporary conversation was invented. The actors centered their work in the middle of the square as planned, but did more playing among and around the audience, too. Overall, they took everything a little farther and allowed things to "change" compared to yesterday, though of course nothing was exactly the same because there was no fixed staging in the first place. I do not want to say it was "improvised" either, because to most people that implies some kind of fictional premise uniting the cast, with actors inventing information to fit. In this case, the premise that united the cast was sensitivity, independence, spontaneity, and awareness of the unfolding audience response.

Brook describes his improvisations in his years in Africa being based on objects and other people in the present, not on any fictional circumstances. In this case, we had the play text, which in rehearsal we had discussed in only the most thematic ways, such as "this play explores the gap between reality and imagination" or "in Act III, the play turns", "the issue of recognition should be explored", etc.

"K" lay face down on the floor and blew at his script, occasionally asking the other actors or sometimes an audience member plaintively for "some help?" Explosively he violently jumped about the playing area, repeating these actions freely, and at will. At the same time "R" and "N", sitting with audience members, began a discussion about scary films with a kind of well-worn casualness, ignoring K and "J", who stood close to them, like a sentinel. I say they were "ignoring" but also they let everything affect them in a present sense. Eventually N left R and R began some of Shakespeare's text when Macbeth asks Banquo, "Ride you this afternoon?". "M" walked the inside of the square tracing the air with her outstretched hand. K spoke the text of Lennox from late in Act III regarding all the murders that take place-- sporadically, to audience members. B sat behind one of the audience members on the floor, peering around in sunglasses, slowly slowly crawling under the chair... the text continued, roughly in the order in which it is written, with skips and returns and some repeats...

There were too many details to keep up the description in this way, but memorable moments included the repeated return of "Macbeth" and "Banquo" to casual conversation regarding scary movies (even while N played Banquo's ghost), the writhing "scrum pile" of J, B and K as the murderers, N's repeated satirical demonstrations of Banquo dying, his red socks revealed as his shoes were removed, M's deepening sorrow as Lady M and her intense sense of intimacy with R (Macbeth), and R's eerie and unconscious sense of internalizing all referenced moments of Macbeth's story into a shifting and painful present. How did the other actors know when to leave the space to Macbeth and when to return? We never discussed anything like that, but it all happened organically just the same...

The whole thing lasted about 35 minutes I think. The air in the room felt theatrical throughout, as though anything could happen, and I think we created a theatrical experience. There was a surprising humor in the event, and the humor turned to serious attention in an instant a number of times, back and forth. For me, that we had essentially "troped" non-literally and non-realistically on Shakespeare's Act III and still gave the sense of the underlying dramatic movement of the story was an achievement of this way of intuitive play-working. R decided to exit the rehearsal room with his last line "we are yet but young in deed" and after three beats I said "That's it" -- and that was it.

Working in this way, one could create both non-traditional or traditional (but fresh) versions of the story, simply by choosing what the actors created almost entirely on their own, within more developed parameters that might also emerge as part of a group process.

I wondered if my initial hunch about the play being concerned with reality and imagination might be more immediately described as "the future is never what it seems."

One director described the experience as "post-modern", which is certainly not what I had set out to achieve, but which I enjoyed hearing. A couple of others felt they had "seen the play." A few folks at the end of the day were very interested in how I achieved the results, and were surprised to hear how little traditional direction I had given the cast, having seen some of the results as clever ideas being executed. If you've been reading this blog, you know that I was not working on either externals or on "choices" or "good ideas" but rather the intuitive presence of the group. The "results" were simply what happened in this vein.

After the other three presentations (B, C & D), we held a discussion focused on the actors' experiences. They made insightful and amusing observations. One actor made an impassioned speech about the corporatization of theatre in America being related to the prevalence of unimaginative realism in American acting. Many observed that most rehearsal rooms are generally "dead spaces."

After lunch, we had a large and long discussion led by Anne intended to be about design and architecture, i.e., focused on the issue of our being in non-traditional, and then different, spaces. It was hard for the group to stay on topic however, and the issue of the limited financial ability of directors to pursue their design (and other) visions more generally was raised, and then dominated a long portion of the discussion. More questions and answers involving the project directors might have been more valuable to us as practitioners. I think all four Macbeth directors felt that the space-changing was at odds with our original intents for the week--and in particular that we kept being surprised by new parameters. In side conversations, I learned that many felt this was not especially useful.

However, the experimental plan of the week was earnestly conceived, and provoked additional thought and discussion outside of official Lab hours. For me, I feel that having rehearsed in the ramp area provoked distinct responses from the actors that we were able to work with in in the traditional rehearsal rooms. As a design "idea" however, being at the ramp would probably not lead to any kind of representation of the ramp in a hypothetical "full production." I would want to filter intuitive images through the actors and designers in the room to create something unexpected.

We had the opportunity to view the participating designers' portfolios, and the day ended relatively early.

Day Eleven at LCT Directors Lab - Afternoon/Evening

This afternoon I attended a discussion led by Anne regarding religious plays and how they might translate or be received in different countries and cultures. The participants each discussed a play and a possible country to produce it in. This process will continue next week with the addition of a number of established directors from around the world.

In the evening, our "Directors on Directors" series continued. I attended sessions on the contemporary French director Arthur Nauzyciel and the early 20th century German groundbreaker Max Reinhardt.

I knew nothing about Nauzyciel before the session. His aesthetic insterests me greatly as it begins non-psychologically based acting, and is audience inclusive (sometimes even site-specific), and artistically intuitive. So much of our acting, staging and design in America is about demonstrating the psychology of character for a voyeuristic audience. Larger theatrical and human metaphors are often lost in the projection of character. In fact, it is quite difficult for many actors to think of acting as anything but the imitation or projection of character, which much somehow pre-exist action. But just as a dancer or a musician is without a character in a fictional sense, but allows the audience to go on a freely imaginative journey, so an actor can be a kind of vessel or blank slate for an audience's creativity.

Nauzyciel apparently works from a place of theater as shared experience and shared artistic object, which puts actors into a different relationship with an audience, even to the extent of direct address, as in Shakespeare. His process--in the instance described to us--began with table work for two weeks, the sole purpose of which seemed to be the neutral, "stripped down", but deliberate speaking of text for its overt clarity, and the development of a way of being which could bring the actor himself or herself directly in contact with the the text, rather than through the filter of character. From there, new, more open questions can be considered while staging.

It was interesting then to hear about Reinhardt's obsession with "bringing the actor and the audience together" much earlier in the last century. To me, the most intriguing idea of his was "the bigger the audience, the better its quality," meaning, I presume, that the contact an audience has with performers is enhanced by a larger number of spectators. He obsessively redesigned and renovated theaters to accommodate large-scale productions, in effect making each project site-specific within each theater. Football, anyone?

Day Eleven at LCT Directors Lab - Morning

Instead of beginning rehearsal as usual for the last three days, we were called to a meeting of the morning Macbeth groups (2 directors, 12 actors, 2 designers, 2 design consultants and Anne).

Using tact and by way of describing Labs past, Anne told us that we were going to switch rehearsal spaces for today's rehearsal, in the spirit of experimentation. If you've been reading these posts, you will know that this processed seemed to be about "site specific" work. We were assigned to rehearse in a backstage ramp area six feet wide and perhaps 40 to 50 feet long with very high ceilings and very orange walls. Today we were sent to the traditional "small rehearsal room", a square whitish room about 30 x 30. We all accepted the news with good humor. Furthermore, I thought to myself that this was good, since we would have to be moving to the large rehearsal room tomorrow anyway for the presentation. Abstractly, I thought that it would be easy "to bring the ramp with us", even in an overt way, i.e., that the actors would behave roughly the same way (though not at all demonstrating the architecture of the ramp). But these actors had become more sensitive to their own inner experience through the work we had done...

We got there and no one knew how to proceed. One actor declared a "shutdown". We talked for a long time. Fortunately, observers were barred for the first half. We dimmed the lights. I stopped talking and hoped something would happen. We talked some more. Another actor noted that now we were all doing what we do in a regular rehearsal room with all of its associations. I noticed that, much more than before, the actors wanted me (or seemed to want me) to tell them what to do. Then we tried to do our "free work" again in the new space. Some of the actors used the chairs (and kleenex) as props. This was good to see, as good actors usually find their way physically, somehow.

I said I thought the space needed to be "defined". The actors said that they had, just by being in it and walking on the chairs, moving the chairs, etc...., but I meant defining the relationship to the audience. I was surprised to discover they had not imagined audience members in the chairs as I had. I had taken my own perception for granted.

Taking a cue from something one actor said yesterday, I placed 24 chairs in a square, to "define" the space, and they played again. I threw my right sneaker into the square. Lady M played with it creatively for some time, though that illuminated little, to me. Everything seemed less valuable and conclusive that it had at the ramp. One actor said that without additional direction, they would just play and play, though he said he wasn't asking for any direction (in so many words). I felt loathe to grab onto any kind of limiting "answer." I would love to free play for a month. Peter Brook did it for three years in Africa, without any playtext at all. On the other hand, I wanted a taste of what the next step in the process might be. I called the break.

About 10 observing directors arrived. I asked them to sit in the chairs (which I had reduced to 5 on a side). I instructed the actors to make an analogy between this space and the last... "The center of the square is the ramp... relating to people (audience) is being at the top of the ramp.. being outside the square is like being "around the corner" at the bottom of the ramp. This was enough--that and the presence of new people--to begin again in a more creative environment. I also stopped caring about what the "audience" thought.

Both yesterday and today, the sense of exploration relating to the play dissipated around the event of the "banquet/Banquo's return". We talked about "recognition" which took some teasing out, and ghosts, and seeing and seeing again. I said that this issue was at the heart of the play's turning point. The we did some more play around that issue, which was quite fruitful, made a few more comments, and the time ended.

When the onus was on the actors to explore from very little, two things happened more intensely than in a "standard" situation. The actors make more personal demands (in a good way) based on their own exploration, rather than pleasing the director. Also, it became even more apparent to me that a director must learn to listen to each actor differently, while setting his own agenda aside, while listening. With one actor in particular I kept hearing requests from me on his part, but he really was just making observations -- I think.

Day Ten at the LCT Directors Lab - Evening

There have been afternoon rehearsals for the other directors working on Macbeth this week, as well as a directors-initiated exploration into exploring the witches from the point of view of different religions which culminated today.

In the evening, we had a two-part discussion regarding the director-lighting designer relationship. We were visited by the Tony-winning MacDevitt/Posner/Katz team who lit Coast of Utopia at LCT, along with a bevy of young LDs with whom we had an extended conversation.

I was one of the directors present with a great deal of experience working with lighting designers, so it was interesting to hear people with different kinds of experience talk about the process.

The prevalent view of all the designers (both famous and young) was that lighting designers should be part of the whole design conversation, from the beginning, and should be related to as storytellers rather than as technicians. This may seem obvious, but it is easy to forget or lose sight of when schedules and geography make conversation less than convenient--and because the most obvious part of a lighting designer's work happens closer to a show's opening.

In addition, all the designers present were from the "tech without tech" school of thought, with which I agree. I think that tech rehearsals should really be called "design rehearsals". In this view, directors are working artistically with everyone in the room and everyone is doing artistic work, including the costume and set designers who are evaluating if their designs are working. LDs are not expected to fill in "cues", nor make actors wait. It's a working rehearsal in which LDs sketch most of the design as rehearsal happens, perhaps stopping to concentrate on key moments (during which time a director can work with actors and others), and then refine through continuing conversation during and around run-throughs and previews. No one seemed to like "dry tech" ("I just erase everything afterward anyway"), though a few thought "paper tech" meetings can be helpful. None of them seemed to like writing cues in advance without actors on stage. In short, a dynamic process involving ideas, metaphors and interaction is what people crave, and what usually produces the richest results.

This was all good to hear articulated. In some circumstances I've had designers of all sorts who have overbooked themselves (or been just plain lazy) and depart after the first dress rehearsal, which, for me, represents a huge lost opportunity. Designers should be on hand until the director declares the show is "frozen" from a design point of view.

At O'Neal's afterwards, I had an interesting conversation with another Lab member about what a "strong" director means, since most of the designers had expressed earlier that they liked "strong" directors. We agreed that this meant both strength of character and strength in directing and personal expression, but not necessarily a director with a unilaterally pre-determined concept.

Day Ten at the LCT Directors Lab - Morning

Macbeth rehearsal this morning was satisfying. After a couple days of free work, the group moved to broader and more specific concerns today, more willing to talk from their own experience of the work we've done, and to feel their way, without pre-direction, through the "story" of Act III, without resorting to realistic banalities, or an exactly logical event order. This group seems to be taking to this way of working, and I wish we could stay together and do it longer. There was a spirited and inconclusive discussion about how we should precisely relate to "presenting" our work on Saturday, since the work we're doing is anything but "for presentation", though as one actor pointed out, we have been being observed the whole time...

The costume designer participating started to "see" things as she watched. She said also that what was valuable to her about being in this kind of open rehearsal was that she "sees" different things each time actors get up to work. Another actor commented that we would need to work this way in "the ramp" for a month before we could take the feeling of the ramp with us, "in our bones" which, being true, makes my "aha" of yesterday about bringing the space with us rather a moot point. A big part of the process for me as a director is allowing what seem like important discoveries to fall by the wayside and recommit myself to seeing what is in the present.

Day Nine at the LCT Directors Lab

Macbeth rehearsal was both early and short today, due to afternoon shows taking place at LCT. I continued doing free improvisational work, after reading through the text again with the cast. A kind of "aha" moment occurred when I realized that, to bring "the ramp" into "the large rehearsal room" for the presentation, we would now have to bring the large rehearsal room into the space of the ramp. That is, are these walls real? Is this confinement psychological rather than physical? Tomorrow we may start putting something together.

I am working with Peter Brook's notions, including that of the "formless hunch". He writes about this in his memoir, The Shifting Point. In our short Lab context, it's like shaving ice for a cold drink off an iceberg, but the idea is to find ways for the actors to tap their intuition, based on the most immediate, but "formless" of reasons to work on the material. Over time, a form -- and a play -- emerge, as the director watches, encourages, prods, questions and engages, though early on, does not impose -- in fact, hardly does anything, compared to more traditional notions of directing.

One way of looking at more prevalent ways of directing is to see the director as a mediator between the text and the actor. The director provides an external form for the text from the outset (often in collaboration with the actors), and the actors must learn to "fill it". The result is usually the imitation of an idea, sometimes with great credibility. A way of looking at Brook's techniques would be to see the director as a mediator between the actor's ideas and his or her intuition -- this is done indirectly by giving the actor the opportunity to find his or her sensitivity to real things -- space, sound, other actors, their own bodies -- before donning the limits of externals like staging, text and "choices." In my limited experience, actors working in this way can tap into something deeper, broader and more evanescent. The form of the eventual production grows from this point, rather than from outside it.

It's worth noting that some of Brook's methods, as well as a host of improvisatory, kinetic and spacial work developed in various parts of the world in the 1960s and 70s are still with us today (this came up in the Chaikin talk I went to yesterday), particularly as part of actor training regimens and "warm-ups." But relatively few companies develop productions which begin with the actors, fewer still with an encouragement of intuition rather than analysis. This is not to disparage any other way of working -- nor does Brook, as he sees the theater as being successful anytime audience members become more sensitive to one another, which can happen in many ways.

In the afternoon, many of us went to see the new Paul Rudnick play at the Mitzi Newhouse.

Day Eight at the LCT Directors Lab - Evening

I took part of the afternoon off, since I've decided not to observe other Macbeth rehearsals.

Sessions initiated by Lab members are starting to happen. The first I attended was on the Tectonic/moments process and last week's rehearsal project. The director and writer were very helpful in contextualizing the process and explaining it further. In particular, one might jump to an erroneous conclusion that since the text is "secondary" in the working process of making moments and building the production with non-textual elements, narrative is also somehow secondary in the final product. It was stressed that this is not the case. While the work is not necessarily realistic or naturalistic in its theatrical expression (although psychologically realistic acting is and can be a big part of the acting), telling a story theatrically is at the heart of it. Questions of authorship were raised that helped to provide insight into the spirit of collaboration that, ideally, is a big part of this work--as was the lengthy process overall, which can be financially and personally daunting for the artists.

Tonight was also one of two "Directors on Directors" evenings in which several Lab participants are sharing information about directors who are strong influences for them. I attended one session on the American actor and director Joseph Chaikin, and one on the French-Canadian actor/auteur Robert LePage. They could not be more different.

About ten to twelve of us went to PJ Rourke's and talked and talked. Now the conversation is not only about theater, but includes more fun gossip and talk about life in general. Real friendships may be forming, or at least seeds are being watered that that might grow beyond the Lab.

Day Eight at the LCT Directors Lab - Morning

I worked on Macbeth Act III with my cast of six this morning, while other directors watched. We read the act, round-robin style, and had a brief discussion. Most of the actors expressed that they had a difficult time gaining "access" to this distinct play. We talked also about the play's immediacy and the distinction between planning life and what happens in life. One actor noted that the words "fear" and "strange" appeared repeatedly in the text.

We spent the next half of rehearsal doing free work in the space. What does that mean? We sat and looked at the space. Actors were free to get up and do things. They did not use Shakespeare's text. They did many many things, most together, or different things at the same time, or in groups. I did one thing. In a sense, they imprinted the play on the space. We summarized events in the act at one point and then did some more free work.

I assigned roles to three of the actors, so they could look more closely at the text overnight.

Day Seven at the LCT Directors Lab

A light day a Lincoln Center. I attended a workshop on "scene transitions" by yet another London-based director who shared techniques she learned from the UK director Neil Bartlett. The presumption behind her workshop was that everything that happens on stage should be significant and that scene transitions are a powerful opportunity not only for storytelling, but to inject the director's interpretation of a play into the production.

I liked her distinction between the "top" of a play, by which she meant the narrative, and the "bottom" of the play, by which she meant its themes. One can use transitions to support either or both. We did exercises and discussed all of the elements of a play that can be addressed in a transition, as well as all the tools one might use to get there.

I took another look at the "Ramp".

In the evening, a number of us attended The Sound and the Fury at New York Theatre Workshop, developed by Elevator Repair Service. Then we went to a kind of theatre open-mic in Tribecca sponsored by one of the members. Finally, there were about five of us who socialized late into the night.

Now that the first week is done, I observe that the Lab is most importantly about learning more about one's self than it is about gathering information about directing. The social element is intense, and I think this is where the most growth is really occurring, for those who are open to it. Shakespeare said our job is to hold the mirror up to nature, which Peter Brook interpreted as "human beings within human life being reflected." When the context is the creation of that mirror, every interaction with another practitioner is a chance to look in the mirror.

Day Six at the LCT Directors Lab

This morning we worked on the section of Oedipus and then "presented" it. The leads did a great job, and the chorus dancing/moving and listening throughout brought a real presence to the populace and galvinized the role of the Choragos.

In the afternoon, I attended a workshop led by one of our members from the UK on working with playwrights. We went through a very effective exercise in writing a short play from a newspaper article, and then re-writing it by cutting the number of words by half.

The evening session was entitled "Who are we?" and included 30-second introductions/descriptions of ourselves by each of us, and some games designed to reveal various facts about members of the group... e.g., three out of our number have children, quite a large number have experienced a same-sex kiss, most of us like or want to direct Shakespeare and two weren't wearing any underwear.

At O'Neal's, I spoke for a long time with a lab director from Italy about the personal goals involved in being one of the presenting directors (me) here at the lab. She was very insightful.

Day Six (and Seven) at the LCT Directors Lab

For those of you who have been following, I will post about Saturday and Sunday sometime on Monday.

Please take the polls...

If you are new to my blog, or haven't already, please take a moment to answer the three poll questions on the right. Thanks for visiting!

For those of you who want to click away: On Sunday, I will be seeing Elevator Repair Service.

Day Five at the LCT Directors Lab

Time is becoming more precious as I take the opportunity to hang out with my colleagues after the official day is done.

In brief, then, here were today's activities.

We are near the end of the first week and so this week's projects are in presentation mode. The new realistic family drama was given a reading (at the table with all of us surrounding), which was sensitive and moving. In response to a question of mine, the director and playwright shared one result of their work this week: some re-writes focused specifically on revealing aspects of character earlier in the play than originally written, in order to provide more context, irony and color for the audience as the play unfolded. Also, one tiny change in the action from the first reading I attended had an enormous impact on the perception of one character and deepened the theme of the play.

The Tectonic-influenced project about marines lost in Iraq was presented in snippets of a few of the "moments" they have worked on, in addition to little scenes with more text. It was heartbreaking (and all true). I spoke with the director later in the evening and learned a bit more about how their process works, and was pleased to learn more. It really is a way for a whole group to provide what would normally be left entirely up to the director to think up, so the results are potentially more rich. Also, the actors had a sense of ownership over "externals" which was strong, particularly after only four days.

I was shown the space in which I am to rehearse Macbeth Act III next week. It is non-traditional and this seems to be by design. It is not at all what I was thinking about (which was a traditional rehearsal room) and so I simply have to "let go of my thoughts" about this for now. What is it? A long, narrow inside loading ramp leading from the offstage of the Beaumont to a lower level. And this: "Don't touch those chairs with the towels on them; they are for South Pacific."

Before Oedipus chorus rehearsal tonight, Anne showed up and addressed two issues that have been percolating within the group: (1) directors not assigned to projects want space and time to create their own discussions or rehearsal investigations, and she said she will try to accommodate them; and (2) some directors have been frustrated with being in the Oedipus chorus and many have decided to skip it entirely because (a) the process has been frustrating at times (before the director finally arrived and we were just working with the choreographer, the assistant and dramaturg I think) and (b) it has been unclear to several of us how serving as dancing actors furthers our development as directors. She gave us the opportunity to say what we thought about all this and then described a lab exercise in an earlier year in which all the directors participated in a 7-hour structured writing exercise, passed their writing to other directors who then provided written comments and criticism, with the result that many people felt either insulted or misunderstood. She said this is exactly why we are doing this: to stand in the shoes of our non-directorial collaborators. In this instance I would say this not only includes actors, but choreographers as well. Those of us who were there lightened up considerably. I think our choreographer grew from this experience also.

Contrary to what one might think, a bunch of directors thrown together are not inclined to try to direct one another (in fact, much less so than some actors I've known). I think we all have a respect for the need for one voice in the room to arbitrate. What we do seem to want (and are not shy about expressing) is a need for specific goals related to rehearsal tasks. Duh! (but good to experience).

The conversation at O'Neal's was lively. I learned about the Philadelphia theater scene, including the that the current mayor there has a healthy attitude toward arts funding, and that most theaters in Philly co-operate quite a bit with one another (there are about 120 theater companies there). I also learned more about the Tectonic methods (as part of a lively debate I listened to). I hesitate to write more about it now, since my experience with it is only theoretical. One of the other Macbeth directors and I spoke at length about the challenges of having our space expectations completely subverted.

Contact me

If you would like to contact me, you may write to me at ron@ronbashford.com, or click through to here.

Day Four at the LCT Directors Lab

Today's highlight was a ninety-minute talk with Bernard Gersten, the executive director of Lincoln Center Theater. Bernie has worked in the theatre for fifty years, as a sweeper, carpenter, stage manager, associate producer, you name it. He had a long tenure at The Public with Joe Papp before assuming the leadership of Lincoln Center Theater with Gregory Mosher. (The current artistic director is Andre Bishop, who will talk with us next week.)

Gersten is a pragmatic man who loves life and loves his job. The LCT doesn't really have a mission beyond "be excellent" and Bernie navigates his world with slogans like "fuck it, just do it" and "chaos within reason."

Here are what I consider his points worth noting and that reflect his way of thinking.

He said that both commercial and the non-profit theaters have roughly the same success rate financially, i.e., that 80% of productions lose money. In both types of structures, producers intend to produce plays that people want to see, and that most audiences don't care which is which. The difference between the two worlds is that in the commercial theatre world, success is measured financially and in the non-profit theatre, success is measured artistically. This is not to say that money doesn't matter in the non-profit theatre, but that it is (and should be) philosophically peripheral to the organization's intent.

As readers of this blog probably know, most non-profit theaters offer fixed seasons that they sell to subscribers in advance each year in order to raise a "float" of money with which to begin each fiscal year, and to develop audience loyalty. Gersten noted that one result of this model is that being a subscriber means having a social identity as such that may have little to do with the theater's programming. He and Mosher strategically rejected the subscription model when they began in 1985. Mosher felt like he had been the victim of subscription seasons at the Goodman in Chicago, which he ran before moving on to LCT. He didn't want to run a theater where, in the lobby, a man would say to his female companion, "What are we seeing tonight, dear?" That is to say, he wanted to run a theater in which the audience all really wanted to be there on any given night to see that particular play.

So instead, LCT has a "membership" model to help attract audiences (like the RSC and the RNT in Britain, and like museums and public radio in a way). Members pay a yearly membership fee which gives them the right to buy highly reduced priced tickets in advance of everyone else. When they started it was $10 per year and $10 per ticket. Now it's $50 and $40/$50. The membership fees raise a much smaller "float" for the theatre than a subscription model would, but affords LCT the opportunity to extend the runs of plays that prove popular with audiences, since they don't have to move on to the next play "in the season."

LCT's first extended run happened with John Guare's "House of Blue Leaves" when it was moved from the 300-seat Newhouse to the 1000-seat Beaumont to Broadway. Since LCT can (and has) improved their box office results through extended runs, their earned-to-unearned income ratio is roughly 68%/32% which is very high in the non-profit world. But it affords them the opportunity to follow their artistic instincts more freely. If LCT did not extend the runs of shows that sold well, Gersten said that ratio would be about 50/50. (I did the math, and that 18% difference in the case of LCT would be about five and a half million dollars that they would otherwise have to raise each year.)

LCT has produced on Broadway and even at Brooklyn Academy of Music in order to keep shows running in its own space when necessary. Apparently, some people have objected to this from time to time. Gersten said that like the British Empire, Lincoln Center Theater is wherever they say it is (!)

He said that actors enjoy working in a repertory format when it happens (as during the three-play Stoppard cycle Coast of Utopia), but that they "don't mean it" when they say they want to do that permanently. [Though, it is clear that the current success of South Pacific may make another COU-like, ambitious repertory project possible in the future.]

At Lincoln Center Theater the board of directors (required by law of public charities who pay no taxes) plays no role whatsoever in show selection; it is the sole responsibility of the artistic director. There's no "artistic advisory committee" of the board, which is true of some institutions. Gersten said that Andre Bishop makes artistic decisions by instinct and experience, by which I assume he meant to imply that Bishop did make artistic decisions in response to outside pressures. The board's only jobs are advocacy and fund-raising.

He thinks the Vivian Beaumont is "the best" theater in the country because it is a thrust stage (which is the most natural way to listen to a play), accommodates 1000 people (which means you can sell alot of tickets), and still feels intimate (only 20 rows).

He said not to underestimate the role of luck in success. "Luck and smarts." He spoke of the current big production "South Pacific" being lucky in that it deals with (and this production highlights) race relations during World War II at a time--now--when an African-American may become President. He feels that this has struck a chord and that that is why sales are solid into 2009. He also said that the show's sound is not amplified--which makes me want to go see it. It sounds good in the hallways when we are on break.

One participant asked him what the LCT "brand" was if it didn't offer an identifiable and predictable season each year. He said that a brand is just a kind of cliché, and "fuck that". If LCT had any "brand" it was that of the mission of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts as a whole, which is "be excellent." One could counter that "Lincoln Center" is itself a brand that aids in the theater's success, but it is worth noting that the Gersten/Mosher-Bishop era is the only one to have lasted more than a few years. The LCT was even dark for a number of years. In the early sixties when Elia Kazan and Robert Whitehead ran the company temporarily in Washington Square while the building was under construction, the board did not understand their support function and fired Kazan and Whitehead because they lost money. Gersten said the theatre loses money because it is by nature, "extravagant."

Gersten believes that the sheer existence of a particular theater is a measure of its success, just like in the case of an organism, or you and me. But this is the part I liked best (of course). Beyond sheer existence, a theatre has one main function: to earn the trust of the artists who work in it. He offered an analogy: if running a theater is like a trapeze act, the artists are the "flyers," and the theater's management are the "catchers." Artists won't let go of the trapeze bar and fly unless they know that the people who run the theater will be there to catch them. And people go to the theater to see artists "fly."

He also said that every theater in history rose and eventually fell, but not to worry about the existence of theater in general: it will outlast us all. All-in-all I found him talk refreshing, progressive and old fashioned all at once.

The directors of the Macbeth projects for next week (of which I am one) met with Anne. In addition to going over some logistics, she encouraged us to "be ourselves" and do as we pleased, and to present whatever we wanted at the end of the week (including just holding a discussion about what we did). She did ask us to keep the focus on our work with actors.

Our second Oedipus choral rehearsal was this evening and Styxx from Zimbabwe was finally on hand to work with us. The goal has been to experiment with representing the chorus through movement and sound. The chorus is what makes an ancient Greek play what it is. I think most of us were frustrated last night, but it was fun tonight. Although most of us don't move especially well, a good many of us can act pretty well and make a difference participating in a group situation like this. I was not shy. A fair amount of what we did started with a premise that led to a group "improvisation" in terms of it's organic outcome. This demonstrated to me that directors generally are quite sensitive to unfolding action, as we achieved good results quite easily. The "happy dance" took on a life of its own.

At O'Neal's later, I learned about a "hot seat" exercise I liked (interviewing actors in character to deepen understanding of a play's circumstances and shared & unshared information among characters), and something more about "moment work" developed by the Tectonic Theater Project. "Moment work" sounds like it would be about some emotional, actor-oriented experience, but it is a way for the actors to create the production around new, developing text (including influencing design) moment by moment. This was the method used to create The Laramie Project.

Day Three at the LCT Directors Lab

This morning I observed two rehearsals, one for a new family drama. They were doing very thoughtful table work in a relaxed and concentrated way. The second one was for Oedipus. They were working through all the same questions we did at NC Stage in January when I directed a staged reading of the play--it was fun to watch other people go through almost exactly the same process, particularly the actor playing the title role.

In the afternoon I spent some time looking at the work of recently graduated MFA designers at "Ming's Clambake". Ming Cho Lee came and spoke with us for 45 minutes, which was far too little time, particularly since he seemed willing to speak with us longer--but we are bound to a schedule.

After telling us about the history of the origins of the Clambake, Ming spoke at length about the ways in which technology is "driving him crazy." He made two main points. First, that students have become lazy and confine their research to the Internet, which means that you always find only what you are looking for, never running into unexpected and related materials on the same shelf in the library, and rarely looking at information in the context that only books can provide. In addition he said that relying on the computer for "images" means that students rarely spread research out in front of them, comparing, absorbing, seeing relationships, creating a "world." This truncated research aspect leads to quick results and less give and take and fewer conversations with directors. His second point was about the gratuitous use of technology on stage, and his point was very clear: when an overuse of technology dominates tech rehearsals, the actor always loses.

He said he has also instituted a rule in his own teaching that students may not seek to have their designs approved by directors "piecemeal." He said that lazy designers show research to directors and consequently get boxed in by a director's attachment to a particular image, rather than forcing the directors to respond to a complete, well-thought out design presentation that reflects a process of discernment and a point of view on the part of the designer. He stressed that designers must make the effort to present their work fully (with models, renderings, etc.) and that the risk is valuable and necessary--especially since the design also has to be realized on stage and has to work. He said that at the "second conversation" with a director in which he shows his work, he is always "having kittens".

In the evening we had our first Oedipus choral rehearsal.

Day Two at the LCT Directors Lab

Today was interesting if relatively uneventful. I was impressed by how quickly experiences that are new become old and a process of discernment (or judgment) begins. I participated in two discussions about religious plays, observed two rehearsals of projects in process, and made a visit to Ming Cho Lee's designer "Clambake" which is his annual showcase of young designers' work. In the evening, one of the lab directors (with a background from the Tectonic theatre company) discussed the project he is working on about families who have lost members in Iraq. Then we discussed the Oedipus project and the status of our Lab member from Zimbabwe, who is now on a plane.

I feel I should avoid any kind of "critical" commentary regarding other directors' work on this site.

What I will say is that the main thing that happened today is people began sharing their opinions: negative, positive, nuanced, not.

The question that no one seemed able to really answer today, but most felt was pretty interesting was "What is a relgious play?" as opposed to a play "about religion"? Is it performed for God? Does it confirm faith? Must it have a homogeneous audience to work? Is the feeling of secular transcendence in the theatre the same thing as "religious"? Why are we doing this?

A number of us went to O'Neal's afterward and socialized and discussed things. Some of the discussion was about the work we saw today, but the bulk of it was about the Lab itself. (We also just learned more about each other and a few people started to flirt a bit, at the very least to make friends more quickly.) On the whole, there was no "grousing", but rather an expression of the need to question a "system" in which one finds one's self, without having yet found the way to channel one's impulses or express one's opinions in the moment. Many people in this group feel hungrier than could be satisfied by today's activities, which is a good thing. This is very similar in that way to an early rehearsal. Most of the people I spoke with tonight are politically astute.

A number of people tonight expressed their convictions regarding colonialism (in a word).

One director said to me that when he was observing rehearsals, since he didn't really know the plays being worked on, he found himself paying attention to who was asking what questions of whom, etc., that is, how people in a rehearsal interact and what "roles" people play in rehearsal, perhaps related to power structures.

I shared my idea for working on Macbeth next week with a few people. I got the positive response I was implicitly asking for, to bolster my confidence.

I note that the actors hired to participate all seem very well qualified. I know one of them, and some others are "well known." I note also that they are not really part of the "Lab", which means that forming relationships with them may be somewhat of a challenge, particularly since their reasons for being here are probably not the same as ours. I hope I am mistaken about this, come next week.

A number of directors have decided to ignore parts of the schedule tomorrow and attend things they want to rather than those to which they have been assigned (although we will not be "assigned" to so much after tomorrow anyway).

There is a wider variety of ages among the directors than I first thought, and the youngest ones stand out the most, just in the way that they ask questions. I am on the older end, but I think not the oldest. The average seems to be late 20s or early to mid 30s. On the whole, people are straightforward, honest, and like to communicate. People are also loosely forming groups, which is natural, trying to figure out who they can relate to. I am finding that the people who are confident of their taste, but circumspect about process, are the ones I am talking to. The very fact of this happening is interesting, because it is both necessary that we form relationships, but mysterious to me how it actually comes to pass. Since this is a workshop environment with a limited time-frame, people are trying to form bonds relatively quickly--at least for a group of quite independently minded people.

I think many of us are doing our own kind of "social research" here, in addition to thinking about art.

Day One at the LCT Lab

It's a fairly rare experience to spend a day with a new group of people and experience almost no bullshit of any kind, but that's what happened today at the LCT Lab.

Anne Cattaneo, who directs the Lab (and founded it with Andre Bishop), really seems to "get it," which is to say she genuinely believes in openness, respect for artists and, more importantly, that the theatre is a constantly evolving possibility.

There's a lot that will go on in the next three weeks, much of which was outlined today. But it seems that there is also room for things to happens which have not yet been planned...

Today was pretty straightforward, and, since none of us know one another, they structured it in advance, along with the next two days... and it is very well supported: there is a staff of stage managers to make it all run smoothly. We met in the lobby of the Vivian Beaumont Theatre at Lincoln Center (where South Pacific is currently playing) and had a group photo taken on the stairs (by some well-known photographer it seemed). We all applauded at something and a near-elderly ticket buyer in the lobby bowed to us in response.

Then we went down into the "Large Rehearsal Room" and had an orientation. It's all very nice at the Lincoln Center Theatre. Nice signage, show posters, shiny floors. Anne talked for about an hour. Bernard Gersten and Andre Bishop also made comments. Among the many things that Anne stressed is that the Lab is a "break" from our working life, an "Eden" so to speak, not a continuation of it. This is the ethos. And that actors and designers matter--alot. She also noted that the Lab is intentionally "big" and intentionally "long", as workshops like this go. There were returning members and she discussed a new international initiative in the works relating to religious plays...

It seems that I am one of about 8 directors (out of the 58), who have been asked to rehearse investigations or new material for a period of time (mine is Macbeth next week). 8 others are doing presentations on well-known directors and another 4 are doing "technique" presentations. It seems that more directors may lead sessions if the need or interest arise. There are two directors from London, and one each from Germany, Finland and Israel and perhaps more countries...

Styx Mhlanga, from Zimbabwe, was delayed due to visa issues, but we hope he arrives tomorrow. He will being leading rehearsals of Oedipus and we will all be serving as the Chorus. (This is all a bit odd since I've worked on both Macbeth and Oedipus in the last few months.)

There are other notables coming to speak with us, but I'll wait to blog about all that when it happens...

Tonight we were visited by the leaders of the company The Civilians, who are an "investigative theatre." They are currently in the midst of a production they created about evangelical Christianity in Colorado Springs, which has been about two years in the making, starting with interviews of the inhabitants. They told us about it for about an hour, and then hopped a cab to go to the Obie awards downtown.

After that, the artistic director of Theater Mitu, Ruben Polendo, spoke with us about his company. They work on what he calls "Whole Theatre", intended to stimulate eyes, ears, mind, heart and spirit. They travel the world, gleaning techniques from other theatrical traditions and adapting them to their own use. They are not interested particularly in "multi-cultural" theatre, but rather in the diversity of methods use to create, or strive toward, a spiritual experience in the theatre. (The Noh technique of imitating painting, or Aluetian tribal rituals, or Tibetan throat singing, to name a few.) They are based at New York Theatre Workshop and are doing a show soon called Apostle, about the moment in the life of any follower when the leader disappears... They are also working on a piece about the history of western acting based on the old silent film "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari." I thought he was really wonderful to be with and listen to.

Andre Bishop said something unintentionally provocative I think, in his brief remarks. In addition to encouraging us to be open to one another--that the Lab was both for us and made of us being together--he said he thought that we are in a "golden age" of theatre in America, and have been for some time now. Most of us do not believe this I think, because the life of a freelance artist is so disempowering, and institutional theatre makers are so constantly worried about money, and, and, and, blah, blah, blah--which is why it was a provocative statement. But he remarked that the sheer amount and diversity of theatre going on now is unparalleled in our history, perhaps in the history of any single nation.

It's a strange experience being in a room full of theatre directors, in ways I had expected and in ways that I hadn't. Directors are fairly shy if they are not the one in charge; I expected that. Directors want to make friends with one another but don't know how; I expected that, too. All directors come with strong agendas, which is a given. What I don't think I expected, though probably should have, is that everyone in the room seemed very smart and also quite aware of what was happening around them most of the time. This quality was not at all off-putting, but quietly enervating even though we have barely begun to speak with one another.

My final observation is that there is an ongoing tradition in evidence here, even though one purpose of the Lab is to "cross-fertilize" one another with ideas from our own distinct histories. The tradition I mean is that of theatre as a serious and important human enterprise. The theatre of just about every company or figure you can think of (from Artuad to Broadway to Stanislavsky and Shakespeare, Brook and Bogart) was mentioned today and immediately evoked as to be imagined--not as knowledge to be studied--by the way people in the room listened. I suppose that means that the Lab is not about theatre as commerce or career or institution-building. Nor is it about theory or any particular movement. The official theme of this year's Lab is "process" (as opposed to "working with playwrights" or "classics" for example). "Process" is a theme so all-encompassing that it feels like a culmination of sorts of the Lab's 15 years in existence.

Theatre has been in the midst of dynamic change for more than a century now, concurrent with the emergence of the modern director. This change includes the regional theatre movement and state-funded public theatres, the international ensemble movement, multi-media, cross-genre, community-based, theatre-outside-of-the-theatre, physical, total, object, dynamic design, whole, the Shakespeare explosion, systematic actor training, political theatre, technological theatre, you name it--all part of modernism's and post-modernism's overarching preoccupation with how culture creates culture.

I suspect that by the end of these three weeks, the evident reality will be that it is right about now we can see that the change that has been taking place in the theatre for all this time is a process of understanding how a multitude of theatrical activities--across time and across continents--are actually unified. By working away from one another, we have actually been coming together. Theatre the world over may just be the way in which we encounter one another on as many levels at once as we can realize, in just about any way we can imagine.

LCT Directors Lab May 19 - June 7

My participation in the Lincoln Center Theatre Directors Lab begins tomorrow, and I hope to post daily while it happens. If you'd like to keep abreast of current posts, bookmark this site, or join Google Reader and add www.ronbashford.blogspot.com as a new subscription, along with your other favorite news sources...