If you were lucky enough to catch Lauren Roth‘s scene-stealing performance in Billie Carver and the Children in Mind, you know what a riot she is. Later this week, she portrays multiple characters in the latest play by award-winning playwright Timothy Nolan. What’s In A Name explores how far you can fun away from your past, and the production introduces one of New York’s newest theatre venues, the Chain Theatre in Long Island City.

Lauren spoke to Works By Women about What’s In A Name, how Billie Carver and the Children in Mind came together and who inspires her.

WORKS BY WOMEN: What can audiences expect from What’s In A Name? 

LAUREN ROTH: Audience should expect a really jarring, interesting, and thought provoking experience with What’s in a Name.  The play is inspired by a 1994 article in the New York Times about a woman named Katherine Ann Power who turned herself in to the FBI for a bank robbery in Boston in 1971 after living under an assumed identity for over 20 years.  The article talked about how she would have dreams nearly every night in which she would slip up and reveal her true identity. In our play, What’s in a Name, we follow the central character as she grapples with the meaning of “identity”, guilt, fear, and what happens when you don’t get a good night’s sleep for nearly 20 years!

WBW: What drew you to the script?  

LR: I loved the idea of getting to explore playing several different characters.  The play starts off in 2003, but much of it takes place in flashbacks to moments in the central character’s story and I  play several different people that appear during these glimpses into the past .  At last count, I portray 8 different characters!  I liked the challenge of finding separate qualities and quirks to delineate the differences between each character and was happy for the opportunity to work on such a non-linear piece.

WBW: The play deals with a woman reconciling her past. How difficult would that be today given all the technology and the way life is captured 24/7?

LR: I would say that in this day in age it is difficult to keep what you just ate for lunch under wraps, let alone any sort of juicy past indiscretions! Folks splatter their whole lives onto social media outlets and if they aren’t so inclined to do so, anyone else has the power to.  It’s damn hard to keep anything sacred these days.

WBW: You were nominated for a New York Innovative Theater Award for Billy Carver and the Children in Mind. What a crazy role. What was that experience like?  

LR: I was nominated for playing P.M.S. (the character “Priscilla Margot Saunders”, that is) and it was a HOOT being able to bring that kooky, boozy lady from the page to the stage.  I auditioned for and was cast in a COMPLETELY different play that the producers were ultimately not able to secure the rights to, so our director locked himself in his apartment for a few days to write a new play for the actors he had cast and that’s how Billy Carver and the Children in Mind was born.  I got to work with some really smart and dynamic folks and together we shaped something pretty great out of thin air.  It was a totally wonderful experience and the nomination was just the cherry on a deliciously creative sundae.   Also, Greg Cicchino (director of What’s in a Name) happened to see that play, we met and kept up since, and that’s how I came to know Variations Theater Group and the exciting work they are doing over at the Chain Theatre in LIC!

WBW: What’s next for you?  

LR: I am a regular performer/writer/show runner at OUR BAR, an ensemble that uses a theme each month to build ten scenes that could legitimately happen in that bar, that night.  With no “fourth wall,” OUR BAR is often described as a month’s worth of bar antics artfully shoved into one hour, and like any great night out on the town, each show is unique.  The material you see at each OUR BAR lives and dies before your eyes.  We put on a brand new show on the first Wednesday of every month at Failte Irish Whiskey Bar in Murray Hill and our next show will be on May 1 at 7pm and 9pm (ourbarnyc.com).  This month, I am also finishing up an extended run of a show I co-created with some old school chums based on Craig’s List’s popular “Missed Connections” section called Missed Connections: An Exploration into the On-Line Postings of Desperate Romantics at the Laurie Beechman Theater where we have two more performances on April 15 at 10pm and April 20 at 4pm (www.missedconnectionsshow.com).

WBW:  What are the challenges facing women in American theater?  

LR: I think there are so many talented and well educated woman who are eager to work in this industry and there are simply not enough opportunities afforded to them.  Women artists are generally excluded from positions of power and visibility in the American theater industry.  More women have won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in recent years but very few women ever win the Tony Award for playwriting or directing.  As in most cases, even on the creative front, the proverbial glass ceiling is still firmly in place.

WBW: What gives you hope for women in American theater?

LR: Artists like playwrights Annie Baker, Lynn Nottage, and director Diane Paulus are pretty darn daring, and they seem to be pushing the lines in an uncomfortable way (see the recent dust up surrounding Baker’s The Flick  at Playwrights Horizons.) I am thinking that them along with some of their female contemporaries might just be setting new boundaries for women in this industry with their uncompromising and strong statements within their work.  Also, I am seeing more and more plays centered around female characters dealing with extraordinary situations and it is really exciting to see some of the actresses I have long admired in supporting roles given the chance to take center stage and really getting to use their chops.  For instance, this season’s The Testament of Mary with Fiona Shaw and The Other Place with Laurie Metcalf allowed these actresses to carry the weight of the play squarely on their backs and give tour de force performances while doing so. Even our play, What’s in a Name, centers around a fascinating female character and has a “lady heavy” cast breakdown (3F, 1M).  It seems that on all levels of theater, more and more women are making it known in a big way that they have innovation to lend both on and off stage.

You can catch What’s In A Name at the Chain Theatre April 12 – 27, 2013. For more information, visit .http://www.variationstheatregroup.com/.

Janet Bentley

Janet spoke to Works by Women about her process as a dramaturg, her goal to challenge type casting and how Incendiary Agents look at the 1960s is still relevant today.

WORKS BY WOMEN: How have you researched the time period of Incendiary Agents?

JANET BENTLEY: My research always begins with these questions:  Why does this character do this? What motivates him/her? What leads this character to this moment and what are the implications? What are their stakes? I always clear my mind of context as much as possible before I sit down and read a play for the first time.  That way I can receive the play on its own terms and from that experience, the questions arise naturally to compel and drive my search for context. After reading Incendiary Agents, I was bowled over by the concept of Father Patrick:  a priest who boldly takes action by using napalm to burn draft records as a symbolic response to the burning of children in Vietnam. My first thought was:  Do such Catholics exist? I recently dramaturged Doubt by John Patrick Shanley, which was set in 1964 and it was the perfect prelude to Incendiary Agents (1969). When I read the play, it was as if I was seeing a later incarnation of Father Flynn from Doubt. I could easily see Father Patrick as a part of the post-Vatican II, next generation of young priests set free to conceive of their own methods of worship. I then located the stories of Daniel and Philip Berrigan of the Catonsville Nine and found my answer:  Yes, this kind of faith can fuel a political movement. I picked up Philip Berrigan’s autobiography called Fighting the Lamb’s War: Skirmishes With the American Empire and this book became central to our understanding of Father Patrick’s approach to faith and politics. Not being religious, but being quite political and spiritual, I’ve always loathed hypocrisy and my exposure to Christianity in many of its incarnations has not been characterized by huge displays of honesty and truth. But in my journey to conceive of a Catholic priest, a figure so often synonymous with deadened bureaucracy, as a true revolutionary whose radicalism is fueled by a firm adherence to the Christian ideal of mercy and non-violence (an ideal so often rationalized away by “rules” and “exceptions”), I did find living evidence in the story of the Berrigans.

Once my bedazzlement with the Berrigans went from illuminating motivations for Father Patrick and Sister Nancy to obscuring my vision of the play as a whole (namely the destructive result of the entire action), I realized that I needed to balance the scales. So I turned to this question:  When does a global injustice become so inescapably horrific and urgent that the individual must use violence, the boldest language of protest there is, in order to get the message out to the powers that be? This is when I found the documentary called “The Weather Underground” and located the inspiration to seek out Laura Whitehorn as a panelist for our talk-back event on March 5^th at 7:00pm.

WORKS BY WOMEN: What is something that surprised you in your research?

JANET: As I watched “The Weather Underground”, filled with my searching questions about how planting bombs in buildings could possibly be a good idea, I was struck by Mark Rudd’s comments about how the war impacted nearly every moment of his existence between 1965 and 1975:  “Our country was murdering millions of people…actually somewhere between three and five million people. This revelation was more…than we could handle. We didn’t know what to do with it. It was too great…a fact. Every second of my life from 1965 and 1975, I was always aware that our country was attacking Vietnam. I could be in the mountains. I’d be thinking about the war in Vietnam. I could be taking an acid trip. And I’d be thinking about the war in Vietnam. It was this knowledge that we couldn’t handle. It was just too big. In a way, I still don’t know what to do with this knowledge.”

This acute awareness of a war happening across the world – this sense that it was inescapable – struck me because I don’t often see evidence of this level of awareness in our current culture. I don’t see it in myself and I feel guilty about it. And then, naturally, I question this guilt by saying to myself, “Why is it so easy to live with these endless horrors?” And this naturally leads back to media’s role in the theatre of war. Vietnam was the first televised war and though I knew that the reporting was boldly honest, I didn’t realize how much access war reporters had to actual military operations and how much was televised. This research has rekindled my deep resentment of the current media, especially when I hear archived interviews like this one between a corporal and a journalist:

CORPORAL
We have certain areas in here that we have blocked off where we know there are friendly civilians and we aren’t going to take them under fire.

REPORTER
And the others?

CORPORAL
The others?  If there’s somebody in there right now…they’re Charlie as far as we are concerned.

When would we ever hear such reporting from Iraq?

WORKS BY WOMEN: Did you find any similarities to the 60s and today?

JANET: Under the surface of every time, you will find the revolutionaries and I have found that these are usually represented by those who can’t turn a blind eye to injustice. It was there then and it does exist now. We just face more challenges now that we are systematically distanced by the dizzying nature of 21^st century existence.

WORKS BY WOMEN: What has it been like working with playwright Jack Karp?

JANET: Jack is very present and generous as a collaborator. He has shared insights, research, and support for all aspects of the production while also allowing an open flow of creativity for all collaborators involved. I have worked with many playwrights and have seen a wide range of approaches and personalities:  from the highly micromanaging to the extremely flexible. I can honestly say that Jack has a solid balance between fighting for what he wants and openly considering different views/approaches. A smart craftsman as well as an intuitive theatre artist, Jack always values what serves the play, even if he finds that one of his own choices isn’t working. He is open to trying new things and always willing to discard what doesn’t work.  There was one speech that he brought in to fill out Patrick’s character and it was pure poetry. Some strictly structure-oriented writers would have doubts as to whether such a speech had a place. Was it too indulgent? This was something that Jack wondered at first. But instead of giving in to doubt, he worked on the speech in subtle ways that shaped and integrated the new text into the fabric of the play as a whole and now I can’t imagine the play without it.

WORKS BY WOMEN: Post-show talkbacks are planned. Tell me about them.

JANET: I am so excited to have Laura Whitehorn of the Weather Underground and Joanne Sheehan of the East Coast Conspiracy to Save Lives with us for the March 5^th event, “Incendiary Symbols: From Vietnam to Occupy”. Since Incendiary Agents evokes both the story of the Berrigan brothers as well as the more militant side of the antiwar movement in the 60s and 70s, this collection of panelists that consists of Laura Whitehorn, Joanne Sheehan, Jack Karp, and Alexei Bondar (actor playing Father Patrick) should generate deeply insightful commentary on the nature of protest, what it was like then, and what we’re up against now.

Here are their bios from our Facebook press release:

As a member of the Weather Underground in the 1960s Laura Whitehorn promoted and employed the use of violence towards political ends; later her membership in the May 19th Coalition resulted in her serving 14 years in Federal prison for her role in a series of bombings that targeted the United States Senate and military installations. She has devoted her subsequent life to social activism on behalf of causes ranging from AIDS to feminism and radical   education. She was an organizer for Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and the Weathermen, and organized or took part in many protest actions throughout the 60s, 70s, and 80s.

Joanne Sheehan was a member of the East Coast Conspiracy to Save Lives and other groups like the Catholic Peace Fellowship devoted to the legal defense of people who destroyed draft records and “occupied” draft boards in the 1960s and 70s. She was heavily involved in the Catonsville 9 legal case, in which Catholic priests Phil and Dan Berrigan, and others, were tried   for the draft board raid they carried out in 1968.

WORKS BY WOMEN: What are the challenges facing women in American theatre?

JANET: The challenges that face women in American theatre seem to mirror the challenges women face in the world in general:  Internalized hierarchical power-structures, binary thinking, objectification. The residue of the past still seems to linger in that most directors are assumed to be male and just like movies and advertising:  “sex sells.” There is always a call to question the status quo from within the art form itself.  That is where the hope lies. However, since an innately revolutionary art form as theatre exists within a product-oriented culture bound by the dictates of the market, this questioning process is often on a small scale. So while we think ahead to a world of fairness and equality, we must still slog through the slow and murky development of everyday life.

That’s the macrocosmic view. On a more personal level:  I started out as an actor and found that I was limited by my height. I was too tall to be appropriately matched with a “leading man”. My bone structure was too commanding for the love interest and this led to getting roles that far exceeded my actual age. When I was Juliet’s age, I could never play her except for an audio Shakespeare series. So now my goal as a director and dramaturg is to cast against type – to give a tall girl a break – to portray a short man with a tall woman and not have it be a zany comedy. But I guess all political awareness is somehow rooted in personal suffering. Hopefully I can use this to help advance things for females as well as males working within the theatre.

WORKS BY WOMEN: What gives you hope for women in American theatre?

JANET: Theatre is, in many ways, an act of living analysis and the more students who branch out and form their own theatres, the more such out-dated power-structures and crises of perception will (hopefully) dissolve. And I believe it comes from what you might call “both sides”: the obvious Brechtian method of re-seeing what is assumed as “everyday” behaviors as well as the deeply exploratory nature of the American Method descended from Stanislavski, which disallows all generalization and falseness. My experience being raised by a Method actress and acting teacher as well as my most recent involvement with the T. Schreiber Studio and Theatre has shown me that if one is to find the truth of their character, she must work to uncover the inner tensions and honestly uncover her identity (physically as well as psychologically). After expensive study of Brecht and some workshops at the Brecht Forum, I have seen another kind of exploration that “interrogates” stereotypes and internalized oppression using very physical and politically-charged performance.  So between these two methods, particularly when these methods merge in various ways (which I have seen and am looking forward to seeing now that I have made the bold move to New York), I am able to feel that there is hope for women in American theatre.

Nylon Fusion Collective presents the world premiere of Incendiary Agents March 1 – 24, 2013 at the New Ohio Theatre in New York City.

Maria spoke to Works by Women about her favorite family dramas, what it’s been like working with playwright John Pastore and her upcoming work.

WORKS BY WOMEN: You were born and raised in Italy. What attracts to the American family drama Family of Strangers?

MARIA RIBOLI: I fell in love with the play the first time I read it.  I immediately saw the other side of this family. It’s very easy to judge them, but what they’ve done comes from a place of love and tremendous loyalty to each other.

I was intrigued by their actions and inspired by their feelings. It’s a very powerful play where nothing is what it seems to be.  It will shock you and make you rethink and reconsider everything you thought you knew about them at the beginning of the show.

WBW: What has your process working with playwright John Pastore been like?

MARIA: It has been a beautiful partnership! Working with John is a dream. He’s such a talented writer; very smart and extremely funny and dark, always at the perfect time. He respects my creativity and my interpretation of his words. I am always able to talk to him and truly be heard. He trusts me and it’s an honor to bring his play to life.

WBW: What can audiences expect from Family of Strangers?

MARIA: I want them to feel like they are looking through a window into a home in the suburbs. They will not be able to stop watching. From the very beginning they will get to know our family members and they will, I’m sure, have their own judgment on them…until everything turns upside down.

Their mouths will drop. All of a sudden, everything they thought they knew will be different. They will walk into the theater thinking they are watching one thing and they will walk out reconsidering everything. It will make them talk for hours afterwards!

I’m also very thankful for the amazing cast I have. They will make our audience laugh, cry, cheer for them and truly feel for the characters.

Adam Pagdon, Jessica Knuston, Tom Cappadona and Vito Leanza pour their hearts and souls out every single time. I pushed them to their limits, to show them that they have none. Their trust and commitment is very humbling for me. They are all wonderful actors and it’s an honor and a pleasure directing them. The audience will fall in love with them.

WBW:  What are some of your favorite American family dramas and why?

MARIA: There are many from August: Osage County, to The Glass Menagerie, to Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? to mention a few… but the common thread for me is what’s underneath.

I’m inspired by work that truly shows what’s going on after the door is closed. We all know that we are different people when it’s just us, with our families, with our lovers. The moment we go into the uncomfortable ‘comfort-zone’ in our lives; that is what’s interesting to watch. What’s behind the facade.

WBW: What’s next for you?

MARIA: I’m already working on a few other projects. I will be co-directing a new play on Nikola Tesla with Serbian director Sanja Bestic this spring here in NYC. I’m also currently directing a TV Pilot called “Open” (created and written by Tanya Rojas and Rachel Barrer) that is being pitched to some major networks. I am also directing and starring in a new play by John Anthony Russo, Exit Music, opening in September. There are already talks to bring it to London. It’s a very busy year and I’m very thankful to be surrounded with such great projects and very inspiring artists. You can follow all the updates on my website.

WBW: What are the challenges facing women in American theatre?

I don’t look at that. I do what I love and I follow my heart. Challenges are lessons. There’s nothing women can’t do in this business.

I have my own acting studio in New York and I always tell actresses not to try to fit any mold out there, but to be themselves. That’s what’s going to make a difference. Don’t try to look and be like everyone else. You are unique and perfect the way you are and the sooner you realize that the stronger you’ll be as an artist and as a human being.

WBW:  What gives you hope for women in American theatre?

MARIA: Knowing that there are thousand of amazing women out there, working really hard every day to follow their dreams! Those are the women I want to work with. Those are the women who will make a difference. We are storytellers. We give emotions to people and you have to be ready to give it all you’ve got. These fascinating artists inspire me.

Family of Srangers runs February 27th through March 16th at Stage II Theater at Roy Arias Studios (300 West 43rd Street, New York). For tickets and additional information, visit http://www.family-of-strangers.com/.

Tina, founding artistic director of Shakespeare & Company, spoke with Works by Women about developing a piece over many years, how to first access Shakespeare and why every community needs theatre.

WORKS BY WOMEN: I love the idea of investigating and developing a work over decades. It is done somewhat in NYC, but I find its practice more prevalent in other parts of the world. Is there anything that particularly strikes right now about Women of Will that you saw differently when you first conceived of the piece?

TINA PACKER: Well, one of the things about working on something over a period of time is that you’re working on the piece and influencing the piece, but what starts happening is that the piece starts influencing you. So as you get more and more deeply into it and what it is you’re writing, the ideas start generating other ideas. And of course what’s happening in the world really comes forward. For example, most people think the battles over in America as far as women’s rights are concerned. But somebody just recently told me that in the New Mexico legislature, they have a law being brought up by a woman that would mean that if you’re raped and have an abortion, you can be convicted for destroying evidence. Or honor killings, or the Ugandan anti-homosexual laws. Suddenly, in a way, the whole world starts coming into focus. And I would say in the last fifteen years that’s one of the things that has changed a lot – we know everything that’s going on the world. So I see more things that are relevant to Women of Will. And in fact, the person I’m meeting this afternoon is a woman who works on how to stop wars. We have an enormous amount of information on why wars are started, but she’s been working for a long time on how to stop them. She’s interested in Part 4 of Women of Will, Chaos is Come Again, which is about what happens when the feminine is not counteracting the masculine.

WBW: Which female character are you most excited to revisit in performance?

TINA: I love them all, but I keep finding more and more reasons for Lady Macbeth for doing what she does, just by doing the text over and over again. I suddenly get perceptions about what parts of her psyche her words come out of. So I find myself fascinated by that. Or, for instance, roles like Marina in Pericles, a fifteen-year-old girl who is very different from Juliet. She’s much more healing. Juliet is much more like me: very adventurous, always wondering “what’s that about?”. Whereas Marina has a real sense of what life’s about and seems to be able to moderate her behavior out of her deep sense of how to heal people. I find that interesting because it’s quite difficult for me to do: a fifteen-year-old healer. You do feel a bit as if you’re coming full circle, because I start with Joan of Arc, who’s had visions from God and then turns into a witch who’s juggling spirits. There, Shakespeare’s coming from a very direct, immediate, almost comic book style. And then I do Marina at the end of the cycle, and she’s someone who has quiet authority, who holds her ground but never yells at anybody. She’s a full woman at fifteen.

WBW: How has studying the Bard’s female characters deepened your understanding of his work?

TINA: Well, when I first began, I would grumble, because there were only two or three women’s parts to ten or twenty men’s parts, and so many more men at the National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company. So the first way Shakespeare’s women impacted me is that there was a real competition for the very few parts. And as an actor, you’re more wrapped up with that. Then, of course, you want to play these women characters, but you’re usually subservient to the action, unless you’re playing Cleopatra. But in most parts, the action is going on around the men and the women are fitting in. That’s exactly like it was when I started on television. I think the first television I ever did was a mystery crime series called “No Hiding Place”, and I was literally called “The Wife” in the script. I didn’t even have a name.

But then I started realizing that Shakespeare was using the women to stand up for what is true in the world, whether it’s about the love between a man and a woman, or somebody like Ophelia, who runs mad to tell the truth. She doesn’t have the courage to tell the truth in her own living life, but once she’s mad, she’ll run around and tell it in riddles and signs and signals, which is one of the reasons why she has to die. Or Elizabeth in the Wars of the Roses, who says the wars are madness and starts negotiating to bring the houses together. She probably couldn’t have brought the houses together if the Earl of Richmond hadn’t beaten Richard III. But if he had beaten Richard III and Elizabeth hadn’t brought the houses together, the followers of Richard III would have continued the war against the Earl of Richmond. So by her bringing the houses together and making it one house, she really created the House of Tudor. And of course, it was the Tudors who said that women could be rulers and so we got Elizabeth I, who’s probably still to this day the greatest ruler England has ever had. A very complicated woman, with a very poor country in comparison to France and Spain, but she really held off the Spanish forces and did damage to them without ever declaring outright war on them. She wasn’t frightened of fighting, but she hated her people getting killed. And that’s one of the last things we say in Women of Will, about the baby Elizabeth, “Men will claim their honor by her ways, not by blood.” And so I feel as if Shakespeare himself started identifying more with the women and less with the soldiers who were going to do “honorable deeds” and fix the problem just by beating somebody else. You can notice as the plays go on, there are fewer and fewer outright fights after Henry V and the women become real players whether to undo the fights or just to have their say.

WBW: Tell me about working with Nigel Gore and Eric Tucker in creating/refining Women of Will.

TINA: Well, originally I had a series of different actors and different directors. I’d gotten a lot from those people, and then I stopped doing it because I needed to do a lot more work on it myself. Then the Berkshire Women’s Festival asked me if I’d do something. And Nige and I had been working on Hamlet and then on Antony and Cleopatra and I thought, I could put this together with Nige and we did a version of it for the festival. Nige wouldn’t have anything to do with the narration whatsoever; he just kind of sat in a chair on the other side of the room. And I’d sometimes ask him things and he’d say “I don’t know.” But what happened was he ended up getting interested in the story and actually started feeling that it had something to do with him personally.

So then it was Nige’s idea to get Eric. We had him come up and just work on Macbeth for us just a little bit. And I loved him because he asked me things, like “how was that?” and I thought, “I can work with this director; he’s not trying to prove himself to me, just finding his way through it”. Eric then did the Month-Long Intensive workshop at Shakespeare & Company and that’s how we built up our vocabulary and our relationship. What was very useful for me was that they often gave me the male reaction – like Nige’s now-famous reaction to the Duke of York in the show. Eric didn’t contribute to the narrative so much; that really came out of Nige’s reactions to me. But what Eric was terrific at was cutting the scenes and knowing what we should lose and include. He helped much more on the actual scene work and narrowing down the material.

The two of them have really deepened what we’ve done and they’ve always helped make sure it doesn’t turn into a polemic. And Nige in many ways plays the fool to my straight man, which is good because Nige and I understand each other’s sense of humor and the comedy in the narrative works. I’d say that all three of us have been influenced by the message of the play itself. It’s given us insights into our own artistic lives.

WBW:  Is there any advice you’d give to a Shakespeare neophyte or a young student just becoming acquainted with his work? A way to read it or frame it? Or a work to first enjoy?

TINA: I would watch Kenneth Branagh’s films, especially Henry V and Much Ado About Nothing. There are several other very good films as well. I think Al Pacino’s Looking for Richard is a nice thing to start with, because you really see that Shakespeare’s for everybody. I love going on YouTube and watching snippets of Mark Rylance’s performances. And going to any of Shakespeare & Company’s performances, and our education programs. If you can get into any of our two-week summer camps, which are about doing Shakespeare. And to anybody, I’d say read it once and then see what happens when you act it out. Even if you don’t understand the words, say them as authoritatively as you can and see what they mean because the word will start telling you what it means. You need to remember that they were very new plays when Shakespeare was writing them, so they’ve got lots of energy in them. It’s not something to be worked out, it’s something to be embodied, to say and then see what emotions come up for you as you say it. So it’s really the reverse of the way it’s taught in most schools. Although I was very lucky, I remember when I was in school I had an English teacher who got us to get up and act out the death of Caesar in the classroom with the desks pushed back. It was mayhem! But it’s great to have mayhem in a Shakespeare class. And we train our teachers to learn how to deal with chaos, because that’s where the energy lies with doing Shakespeare. If it’s an intellectual energy, it doesn’t work. It’s got to be a playing energy. You play the plays in the playhouse, so it’s playing.

WBW: What are the challenges facing women in American theatre?

TINA: I think women have got to make their own work. It’s not just that there are as many women as men – although the women drop out at a faster rate because there are so many fewer parts for women, but it’s also that there are more women audience members and there are more women who are interested in thinking about how we can change some of the power structures. But all the structures are still men, like the university structures and economic structures. There are a lot of women artistic directors now, because women – and I’m generalizing here – are very suited to the multitasking you need to do that job. So I think women need to take confidence about this and also really see how they can market to women, because women are their audiences and men have a larger economic base to pay for the tickets. Women have got to take their authority, and they’re very good at writing relational plays, but they’ve got to write political plays as well. Putting the personal story inside the political structure. If you don’t do that, then all you end up with is yet another dysfunctional family. It needs to shift. So my thought for women is to get out there, not to wait tables but to teach or to create plays themselves, and really see what it is that makes them effective and how they can make an impact.

WBW: What gives you hope for women in American theatre?

TINA: There are a lot of good women playwrights coming up. And one of the problems is that if you’re doing an artistic endeavor like playwriting, you often can’t do anything else, and it does seem to me that women need to be the producers of the work as well. Everyone always asks, what does the market dictate? And one of the things you have to start trying to influence is the market. Women need to think, How can I be at the tipping point? I don’t think you can any longer think of theater just as people getting together and putting on a play. It’s not a case of, If we do it, they will come. It’s just as much about getting the market and fundraising right and framing it properly, because you’re competing in an absolutely mad world. And unless you get it framed right and get it into the publications you need to get it into, it might be brilliant and it will still drown, because the next day there’s another five hundred things that have come along. You have to think of theater as being about all these other things. And that’s even if you’re just in your local town doing it, which is where I think theatre should go. I think everyone should spread across the country and every single town in America should have its own theatre talking about the history of that town, that area, what they struggle with, what the background is and really being a kind of living history project. And then do a Chekhov, do a Shakespeare, do all these other things, because they’ll teach you how to do plays. But in the first instance, telling the story of the community is the most important thing, and I think we’ve forgotten that that’s our job. Most communities don’t have theatre companies, and they should.

Photo Credit: Matthew Murray | Tina Packer and Nigel Gore in Women of Will.

Valentina Fratti

Valentina has currently directed a new adaptation of R.U.R., Karel Capek’s 1920’s play that introduced the word “robot” to the world, for Resonance Ensemble in New York City. She spoke to Works by Women about her favorite robots, why R.U.R. is still relevant nearly 100 years later and why opportunities matter.

WORKS BY WOMEN: You are directing a new adaptation of one of the most seminal plays ever written. Cherished by science fiction lovers and acknowledged by theatermakers/goers, R.U.R. is a classic. What excited you about working on this play?

VALENTINA FRATTI: I was drawn to exploring a genre – science fiction – that we rarely see on stage. Its fantastical nature is so well suited to theatre, and I was curious about exploring how much we could achieve dramatically within the parameters of theatre.

WBW: How does Lee Eric Shackleford’s adaptation make the play modern? How did you create its world for today?

VALENTINA: Shackelford’s adaptation makes the play a little more accessible — more active and less expository. The original is quite polemic, and audiences today lose interest in theatre that is didactic or explains too much. A modern audience wants to figure things out for themselves.  Our production sets the play in 2030. There’s a big difference in our perception of robots today than there was in 1920. We have incorporated robotics and advanced technology into our daily lives whereas when the play was written it was more of an imagined world so I think there are details that we can relate to that couldn’t have existed in the world of (Karel) Capek’s play or to his audiences.

WBW:  What themes in R.U.R. still ring true today and why? 

VALENTINA: Several. What do we lose as a society as technology advances? What is a soul and do we need to at a certain point imbue machines with “souls” so we can relate to them better? If we have robots that provides you with support, both practical and emotional, do we then project onto them souls and if we do so when do we start imagining that their souls exist independently of our manifestation of them? Does the robot “grow” its own soul? I would even take it a step further. What is a soul?  Maybe we’re all versions of a machine that simply break down and die.

WBW:  Who/what is your favorite robot – in the play or in pop culture – and why?

VALENTINA: I love all the robots equally….What is so fascinating is that even robots have distinctive personality! Have to say … Love Robbie the Robot but who doesn’t?

WBW: What play would like to direct next and/or what are you working on next?

VALENTINA: I am developing the true story of Jerrie Cobb one of the first American women astronauts with playwright Laurel Ollstein. They Promised Her the Moon examines both her fascinating personal story as well as the injustices faced by women at the time. Cobb passed all the tests to go up into space, even surpassing the Mercury 7 only to be eclipsed by John Glenn and other male astronauts.  Her disappointment transforms her, and in a surprising twist she journeys to the Amazon.

WBW: What are the challenges facing women in American theatre?

VALENTINA: Opportunity. But I am a great believer in creating your own opportunity.

WBW: What gives you hope for women in American theatre?

VALENTINA: The more women create their own work, the more the industry and audiences will expect women in the field. Therefore it is very much up to us to support each other, hire each other and not be afraid of self-promoting. If we are present we cannot be ignored. 

R.U.R. continues through February 2nd at Theatre Row (410 West 42nd Street, between 9th & 10th Ave.). For tickets and additional information, visit Resonance Ensemble’s web site.

Christina, who is a member of New Dramatists and a Core Writer at The Playwrights’ Center. spoke to Works By Women about how Hollow Roots came together, the late poet Essex Hemphill and her love of sneakers.

WORKS BY WOMEN: Your piece Hollow Roots investigates the idea of a post race society. What was the original seed for this piece?

CHRISTINA ANDERSON: I wrote Hollow Roots as an exploration of solo performance, language, and race in America. I read several solo plays and soon recognized a pattern: actors of color often performed pieces that featured multiple characters. The theatricality lived in the agility and skill required to embody so many different people—Anna Deavere Smith, Dael Orlandersmith, John Leguizamo are writers/performers who come to mind. However, the lone character who recounts and reflects a singular narrative is a style often seen embodied by white men (e.g., Spalding Gray and Wallace Shawn). “What’s up with that?” I wondered. And promptly began creating a female Black American protagonist who tells her story directly to the audience.

I’ve always been interested in the concept of a “post-race society.” And the term seemed to catch mainstream attention once (President) Obama started his first term. As I did research I noticed the conversation focused mostly on white people’s ability to “see beyond race” in America. I wondered what it would mean for a person of color to exist in that society. What would it look like to be unaffected by and/or neutral about race or gender issues? As I crafted my protagonist for the solo play, I thought it might be interesting to have her search for this “person of color with no color to tell her neutral narratives.” Hollow Roots was born.

WBW: You mentioned that Hollow Roots (starring April Matthis, pictured left) is in the style of Spalding Gray and Wallace Shawn. Was it freeing to write in this way or were there unexpected limitations?

CHRISTINA: Gray was an incredible wordsmith as is Shawn, and I admire the skill it takes to paint a world or an experience based solely on words.

I really enjoyed focusing on the language. Creating the world of Hollow Roots turned out to be a form of meditation. I had to have the patience to find just the right way to describe an image in an active and theatrical way. That meditation offered a certain type of freedom.

Also, it might sound weird, but I didn’t expect to bond with this character. She’s tough, a bit quirky, warm, but also distant. She’s an enigma, but I also feel a connection with her. It’s most likely a one-sided relationship—I might like her more than she likes me. (laugh)

When I write plays with multiple characters, I definitely get to know them in unexpected ways, but there was something unique about shaping the Hollow Roots protagonist. I thought it would feel like a limitation to craft a single character for an entire play, but it was actually pretty cool.

WBW: I want to see everything at the Under the Radar Festival. What is on your list not to miss at the festival?

CHRISTINA: This is the first time I’ve been in town for the festival, so I want to see EVERYTHING! I’m especially excited for The Debate Society and Elevator Repair Service. Lemon Anderson and Taylor Mac are two performers I adore, so I’m eager to see their work, too.

WBW: You’ve mentioned that the late poet Essex Hemphill is one of the artists who influence your work. Is there a particular poem that speaks to you? Or is there something about his work that strikes you right now?

CHRISTINA: I love Essex so much! I saw (Marlon Riggs’) Tongues Untied as an undergrad, and I was moved by his poetry in that film. I immediately ran to the library and grabbed a copy of his collection CEREMONIES.

His work is so complex, passionate, political, and personal. I love that he owned and expressed his right to be seen and accepted in his communities—Black, gay, literary, and geographically. And he was unafraid to say: we need each other! You need me just as much as I need you.

And, simply, his poems are wonderful.

Although I never met him, or heard him read his work, I miss his voice in a profound way.

WBW:  You have a love for sneakers and visual art. What attracts your eye and do these forms influence your writing?

CHRISTINA: I’m drawn to visual art that explores the unfamiliar in the familiar.

There’s a great series by photographer Olivier Culmann that captures people zoning out in front of the TV.  It’s a familiar pastime for many of us, but Culmann captured a solemn perspective.

I also love visual art that tells a story. Jacek Yerka’s paintings do just that. Each one is filled with action—something just happened or is about to happen.

As for sneakers, I wish I had a deep, philosophical perspective, but I just like a clean pair of kicks!

I think these forms influence my writing by offering an escape from it. I create art, but I also consume it. I like traveling to landscapes created by other artists. Those journeys can take place within a piece of art, or the colorway of a pair of sneakers.

WBW: What are the challenges facing women in American theatre?

CHRISTINA: From the perspective of a playwright, I think getting produced is still a challenge. Male playwrights dominate the season at several theaters all over the country.

There are fantastic writers, creating complex stories—Dipika Guha, Meg Miroshnik, Amelia Roper, Radha Blank, Basil Kreimendahl … just to name a few. With that short list, I could build a great season!

WBW: What gives you hope for women in American theatre?

CHRISTINA: The Lily Awards and New Dramatists offer incredible support and recognition. Playwrights Horizons and LCT3 are pretty great. Two Artistic Directors I admire: Marissa Wolf at Crowded Fire and Loretta Greco at Magic Theater—both in the Bay Area. Charlotte Braithwaite, Lileana Blain-Cruz, Tina Landau are directors that give me hope. Playwrights include Quiara Hudes, Jackie Sibblies Drury, Christina Ham as well as the writers mentioned above.

Performances of Hollow Roots run through January 20th at the Public Theater. Tickets are $20 and available at Under the Radar’s web site.

Photo credit of April Matthis: Yi Zhao.

Taryn spoke with Works by Women about what’s new about this production of Urinetown, how important the emotion that makes the world go round is, and what musical is next on her dance card.

WORKS BY WOMEN: Why Urinetown: The Musical right now?
TARYN TURNEY: It just happened to be the right time, the right place, the right line up for our musical productions. We’re very selective in the musicals that we produce and when we produce them. We don’t want the audience to continue to see the same type of show over and over. I have been waiting to be a part of this show for years, and now that the time has come, I couldn’t be more thrilled!

WBW: What can audiences expect from this production?
TARYN: We’re taking Urinetown and trying to create a “new” version of it. We’re not doing the traditional set design; you’ll see our Urinetown as an almost post-apocalyptic world. Our world is run by commercialism. Big corporations have taken over in this time of drought. Oh, and it’s hilarious (just in case you didn’t get that from the depressing definition I just gave you).

WBW: Has the recent Hurricane Sandy and its troubling aftermath affected the production or the lens through which you view the musical?
TARYN: Hurricane Sandy shut down our theatre (Secret Theatre in Long Island City) and many theatres in the community when it came by. We were very lucky (especially being so close to the water) that we still have our space and a community willing to come and support us.

WBW: What is one thing, other than a free toilet, that you would fight to keep?
TARYN: Love! (which also happens to be one of the themes of our show). Whether it’s a love of a person, an animal, or musical theatre, we all need love motivate us and be our best selves.

WBW: What’s next for you?
TARYN: Pending the rights, Secret Theatre Musicals will be producing The Wedding Singer next!

WBW: What are the challenges facing women in American theatre?
TARYN: The biggest is just being a woman. I’ve found that every time I go into an interview I have to work really hard to convince someone that I’m right for the job. People picture a director as a man, not as a 5 foot tall tiny blonde woman.

WBW: What gives you hope for women in American theatre?
TARYN: The amazing directors, actors, and crew members that we see breaking the mold both on and off Broadway every day. Even with our production, our set designer is a woman, and she works those power tools like no other!

Urinetown: The Musical plays at the Secret Theatre through January 26, 2013. For additional information and tickets, visit http://www.secrettheatre.com/.

 
WBW: Tell me more about the process of creating We Are Now?
 
KATRIN: In the spring of 2012 our resident company, Next Stage of Sanctuary Playwrights Theatre, began delving into the subject matter of freedom, starting with the very broad question “Are We Free?” We had workshops in addition to our bi-weekly meetings doing research, reading articles, discussing, listening to music, sharing our perceptions and exploring the complexity of FREEDOM. Then we added Moment work into the mix, creating scenes, “moments”, which were then compiled into a presentation on May 23, as Prototype 1. From there Bob Jude Ferrante created the basis of what is now We Are Now, which we presented as a reading on August 8th, called Prototype 2. Together with the company it has seen many rewrites and incarnations, right into the rehearsal process for this first full production of our piece. So the credit is rightly We Are Now, by Bob Jude Ferrante with company.
 
WBW: What can audiences expect from We Are Now?
 
KATRIN: A fun, funny, immersive experience in a unique setting with serious undertones, which will hopefully spark somebody’s awareness as to how much we let ourselves be pigeonholed by the government for one, but even more so by companies who want to “service us best” by knowing all of our choices and preferences. And how much we self-segregate already by living in neighborhoods where people of the same demographic strata live, the same political orientation, religion, professions etc.

 
WBW: Where do you get your inspiration?
 
KATRIN: From everything. I walk around with eyes peeled and ears pierced, snatching up visual information, human interaction, sounds, everything, I’m a sponge. Then of course there’s art that informs me: visual art, movies, theatre, I’m just incessantly curious, and I expose myself to unknown territory a lot. I get restless in my comfort zone, I always need to grow.

]]>