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Vol. XIX No. 5 February 2004 |
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Yin Meets Yang in Theater Directors Program You've heard of "yin and yang"? Now meet Sam and John. Sam likes to spend his summers in Krakow, Poland, eating pierogies and kielbasa, while John spends his vacation running a physical theater workshop in Big Sur, Calif. Sam is confident that he wants to be a director. John prefers to play the field, dividing his time between being a teacher, a director, and an actor. Sam is thoughtful. John is gregarious. Despite all their differences, they do have a few things in common: for example, they are the newest members of Juilliard's Artist Diploma Program for Theater Directors.
Both John and Sam have quite a bit of experience under their belts. John has been an artist-in-residence at the Pacific Repertory Theater for more than 10 years, appearing as an actor in such productions as Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard starring Olympia Dukakis, and Shakespeare's Henry IV, as Prince Hal. He has been teaching acting and movement for years at such institutions as N.Y.U., the Ruskin School, and the Performing Arts Conservatory of Carmel, which he founded. Sam had an auspicious start as a director with a wildly successful rendition of Beckett's Endgame , while studying at Cornell University. Since then his career in New York has included difficult plays such as The Maids by Genet and Pains of Youth by Ferdinand Bruckner. Most recently, he has been touring with the Wooster Group, a renowned experimental theater company lead by Elizabeth LeCompte. This March he will appear in a workshop of their newest piece, for now simply titled New Work. Neither Sam nor John knew much about Juilliard's directing program before they applied, only that "it was in New York, it was free, and it was hard to get into." The program is still quite young, and this is only the second class that Mr. Belgrader has mentored. As the program only accepts applications every three years, it causes quite a stir in the community. Sam says," Everyone I ran into was applying for this program." The audition process is exhaustive, involving multiple interviews with Mr. Belgrader, then with Michael Kahn, head of the Drama Division, and finally directing scenes from different Shakespeare plays with a group of actors under tight time restrictions. Both Sam and John feel honored to have been selected. Their course load will include a myriad of classes, consisting of music appreciation, acting with Mr. Kahn, a scenic/lighting design course offered through N.Y.U., and Suzuki training. However, the directors are encouraged to audit any Drama Division class they desire. John really appreciated the Suzuki training this past fall, and Sam is excited about Christopher Bayes's physical comedy class this spring. "My job, as a director, is to learn the language of everyone else's craft, be it an actor, a designer, or a technician. Right now I am just happy to be exposed to different ways of working," said Sam. Now that they are here, they are hard at work. Their assignment for this spring was to choose a play that could be done in less than an hour, with minimal sets and costumes—something that wasn't Shakespearean or Greek, and that would be challenging for them personally. The results? Sam will be directing In The Blood by Suzan-Lori Parks, who won the Pulitzer Prize in 2002 for her play Topdog/Underdog. In the Blood is a modern adaptation of The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, which now follows the trials of a homeless woman as she tries to feed her children. John has decided to tackle Woyzeck by Georg Buchner, a fragmented story about a German soldier losing his mind and the abusive regime that surrounds him. Both plays will be presented in Studio 301 during the third week of February. Their reasons for choosing their respective plays are again as similar as night and day. Sam is familiar with Parks's work since he assisted on her latest show, F***ing A, at the Public Theater. He believes a certain style is necessary for her plays; a lens that filters the storytelling, which then helps the audience understand who they are in relation to the story. Meanwhile, John knew of Woyzeck only by its reputation as a German Expressionist piece often attempted and often misunderstood. After reading it, he confessed his interest was piqued: "It creeped me out and confused me the most, out of any of the plays I was reading at the time." He is excited about working with his actors "to fuse together [their] imaginations" to discover a powerful way to tell this gruesome story. The one thing Sam and John can both agree on is that they like material that is "open," that "asks big questions" and is dense, risky material for actors. As these disparate gentlemen dive into their training, they are looking to gain greater confidence and efficiency in their work—so that, when this program is all over, they'll be well on their way to (as John says) "a more perfect balance of craft and intuition"… which sounds an awful lot like "yin and yang," if you ask me.Tickets to the Director's Projects are not available to the public.
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