Day Eighteen (in part) - LCT Directors Lab

(June 7)

I'm finishing up the last few posts of my account of the Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab slightly out of order now, but given that the Tony Awards were just the other night, this entry is most timely.

Anna D. Shapiro was our last guest, in the afternoon of our last day. Like Bartlett Sher before her, she urged us to leave New York City to develop as artists. For those interested in "making it big," this advice, having come now from the two directors to win Tony Awards this year (before they won), ought not to be dismissed out of hand. On the other hand, both were well-positioned to gain additional notoriety at prominent regional theaters, but on the other hand (if you have three hands), both are distinctive for their seeming ability to maintain an independent outlook while supporting the popular institutions for which they work. It's also worth noting here that young artists in New York City may be developing something different these days -- something "post-dramatic" -- than either Sher or Shapiro ever would have (more on that in a future post).

The majority of the lab members seemed to love Anna. She is blunt and immensely caring, in both respects just like her direction of August Osage County. In response to at least two of the younger lab members' questions, she zeroed in on them personally as if to make a psychological impact: don't think about "career", don't think about "regions" ("we are all Americans"), all these "distracting threads"... which she seemed to be cutting through deliberately with a pair of psychic scissors. One member of the lab asked her about the challenges of being a woman in a traditionally male field. Her response was as self-empowering as it was up-to-date. She said that it had not been an issue for her, and in her view, there is no longer an issue of gender discrimination generally for women directors, at least not for white women: there are groups that have it far worse, and she implied, in harder circumstances than in the educated world of the theater. Nevertheless, our culture and the media still "fetishize" women: on the first day of the New York rehearsals for "Osage County," a reporter asked her who her favorite designers were. Anna replied "why, the ones I'm working with on the show..." "No," the reported explained, "I mean your favorite fashion designers.." (!)

Anna's emergence into the commercial limelight is quite recent and she is coping with all the new "noise" in her life while maintaining a hold on herself, turning down the inevitable onslaught of work offers that do not speak to her sensibility. Both distinctively and universally, Anna described her impetus to direct as "the nebulous of like" while gesturing to the center of her body. This nebulous of like is simply what you (one or she) "like". It is personal, real, literally embodied in one's self, and one's right as an artist: to like what one likes. The challenge as a director, according to Shapiro, is to articulate that "like" to one's self and then communicate it to others, that is, to stand for your artistic intuition in the world and to get others to understand and join you in common purpose. She is an ensemble director first and foremost.

As a director, Anna also very much sees herself as a leader, and insisted that a good director is a prepared one – and one that leads a cast of committed actors with a clear articulable vision right from the start. In fact, she writes an "address to the cast" to read aloud at the first rehearsal of each project she directs, and requires her directing students at Northwestern University to do the same. Other approaches, she said, are "wrong!" (though could be accomplished in different ways, she then admitted). She is a relatively young director, and is so independently minded that I sense that at some point in the future she will abandon her own current approach, since most serious artists go through phases characterized by letting go of their need for control as their mastery unfolds.

Anna also demonstrated she believes passionately in acting, ensemble, community and (again like Sher) that our country is at a crossroads in a time of crisis -- and, interestingly, that August Osage County was not the most meaningful of her current projects in that respect.

Since she was the last of our four prominent director guests, it is worth noting now that the grain of salt to take with O'Brien's, Wolfe's, Sher's and Shapiro's "performances" is that each implicitly or explicitly presented his or her own history -- so different from one another -- as the prescription for us to fashion a career best. Could anyone in that position do otherwise? What would that be like? But Anna's dynamic presence was more impressive than nearly anything she said -- because of her strong emotional connectedness and her ability to listen and really talk to us. More than any of the others, she stood for herself as an example of unfeigned authenticity: highly effective -- and rewarding.