Rotation 3 involved a return to my roots – theatre for young audiences - as well as a brand new challenge – directing a musical, Busytown. We started off our process with a workshop on clown, which my friend and mentor Beth Milles was kind enough to teach for us. Busytown is filled with characters who are completely naïve to every day things we take for granted, like how the mail system works or where wheat comes from. As such, I wanted to introduce our cast to clown as a form because of it’s emphasis on discovery and being naïve to the world. As Beth would put it “Clown is always seeing the world for the first time”. After an afternoon clowning around, we were ready to tackle pretty much anything Busytown had to throw at us.
Rotation 4 was my chance to work on a new play, in this case Sheri Graubert’s drama Military 4 Play, about the lives of soldiers in World War I and the current Iraq conflict. Working with Sheri was a dream. Not only is she a talented playwright, but an experienced actor and, as such, had incredibly helpful insights into the characters and their motivations to contribute as we read and blocked the play. While we rehearsed, an incredibly moving coincidence occurred. On the first and last Saturdays of rehearsal, the last two remaining British veterans of the WWI trenches passed away. Inspired by this and by the wealth of stories Sheri brought us from her work with and research on Iraqi veterans, we closed out the season with a production we were all proud of.
Looking back over the whole summer, I’m invigorated by the appetite and fearlessness of our Lab Company members – particularly when faced with trying something that they’ve never done before. Over and over, in events like the 24 Hour Play Festival and our work on the new plays, people surprised me with their willingness to dive right into the center of something foreign to them. I feel privileged to have spent a summer leading such a daring group of collaborators. Most of all, I’ll continue to draw inspiration from what I learned from my fellow Drama League directors. From Sherri: how to speak my passion and instill it in others, from Mia: how to maintain calm under pressure and to never stop pushing for my vision, and from Brandon: to jump in and deal problems head on. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. As I head back to the real world, these little moments and lessons energize and inspire me.
So long Lab Company '09!
