By MAHIRA KAKKAR

Juilliard's Drama Division is the youngest of the School's three divisions—but in its 37 years, it has developed into one of the best training programs in the world. Drama alumni have made a vast impact both nationally and internationally through their work in film, radio, television, and theater.

As Juilliard celebrates its centennial year, plans a large-scale building renovation, and begins the search for a new Drama Division director to succeed Michael Kahn, who steps down in May, it feels as if the division, like the rest of the School, is on the threshold of exciting growth. Drama alumna Mahira Kakkar spoke with six major figures in the American entertainment industry: Ben Cameron, executive director of Theater Communications Group; Joe Dowling, artistic director of the Guthrie Theater; Christopher Durang, playwright and co-director of Juilliard's Playwrights program; Stuart Howard, casting director and Juilliard faculty member; Emily Mann, writer, director, and artistic head of the McCarter Theater; and Tracie Thoms, actor and alumna (Group 30). These are some of their thoughts about Juilliard's Drama Division and its graduates, the role of conservatory training in general, and the state of the theatrical arts today.

Ben Cameron (Photo by Brennan Cavanaugh)

What are some of the things that you've appreciated over the years about the Juilliard actors you've seen or worked with? Why do you feel that the training is important, and is it different from other training?

CAMERON: Everybody will tell you that Juilliard actors are incredibly well-trained in language and in verse especially, that they are incredibly well-trained classically, that they know how to command text and they are intellectually astute in their choices.

DOWLING: I think the notion of a formal training, such as you get at Juilliard or N.Y.U. or Yale, is essential. Different programs have different emphases, and one of Juilliard's strengths is the formal, classical speaking of verse, being able to use language. I like that. I think that far too much in our culture nowadays, people are losing the capacity to speak language in a way that really makes these great plays of the past come alive. And Shakespeare is still the most popular playwright in the world.

THOMS: I would not be able to do the work that I do now without having gone to Juilliard. I now have a huge toolbox, and I feel safe with other Juilliard actors because they all have the same toolbox, and know how to use it. Mentally you're not translating when you're around them; you speak a similar vocabulary.

Joe Dowling (Photo by George Byron Griffiths)

DURANG: I've taught for 11 years at Juilliard, and one of the things I immediately liked about the program was that the playwrights have access to the actors—because for playwrights it is so helpful to hear actors read their work aloud. The Juilliard actors always throw themselves into the Playwrights' Lab readings with wonderful abandon and talent, and hearing them gives a sense of how it will play out in the world. In readings aloud, the playwright is also helped to hear where it's presently not working, or is misleading or confusing. And I find that playwright-actor interchange incredibly valuable. I've actually had two plays done as fourth-year projects—one was The History of the American Film and the other was The Marriage of Bette and Boo—so I got to watch some Juilliard actors work directly in my stuff, and I'm very admiring of them.

Do you feel their work is different from the work of untrained actors? How important is conservatory training?

HOWARD: As a casting director, the first thing I look at on a résumé is education. I'm not interested in an actor who only uses his or her instincts; I want to know that there's a foundation and a training behind that.

CAMERON: I think every actor begins a journey through some instinctive talents, but training gives you the tools to channel those emotional instincts and intuitive choices, to shape them skillfully and effectively to communicate to an audience. It's like anything else that requires a physical discipline, like being an athlete or a singer. I think any training program at its best offers an opportunity to deepen the understanding of technique, to enhance craft and develop an individual vocabulary that will serve you throughout your career.

Christopher Durang (Photo by Jessica Katz)

DURANG: Yes, I do think conservatory is valuable—there are things you can learn about your own stamina and about vocal production and movement. But I also think people have different paths. I don't think you have to go to a school in order to be a writer or an actor. … But if you don't, well, just starting out, bam, making the rounds is not a route I know anything about at all.

MANN: Going back to 2001 when I did Romeo and Juliet and then The Tempest two years later, I found that those coming out of Juilliard were simply beautifully trained, whether they were right for the role or whether we connected simply on a chemistry level. But they certainly were head and shoulders above the untrained, who were simply gifted, talented actors without technique. I was very impressed by both of the graduating classes that I met while casting the last two Shakespeares here, with their inventiveness as well as their craft.

What are the inherent strengths of working with trained actors on a new or classical play?

THOMS: There's a certain amount of consistency that a trained actor can bring to the part; it takes the mystery out of it. In Rent, there's a funeral scene at a cemetery. During the filming, everyone was screaming and crying and being emotional all day long. By take 37, only the trained actors could still do it; those who were going on instinct dried up. There were only two of us—Jesse Martin, who went to N.Y.U., and me. And I thought, "Oh my god, I'm not ravaging myself!" It was just technique, and that's still there when inspiration fails you.

How have the style, training, and experiences of Juilliard actors changed over the years?

Stuart Howard (right) in conversation with Olympia Dukakis when the actress visited the Drama Division in December. (Photo by Jessica Katz)

DOWLING: I don't think it has changed that dramatically, but there are obviously going to be big changes now that Michael Kahn is leaving, and there are changes also in the culture, because of how people perceive what will be required of them in their careers. They recognize that less and less classical work is being done, and more and more movie and television work is being done, where they are required to be more colloquial and where language is not an issue for them. So the desire to maintain that rigor will weaken unless someone says, "No, we're going to be distinct and different, and it doesn't matter if people think we're speechy; we know what we're doing here."

MANN: There was a time—say, 20 or 25 years ago—when many of the actors coming out of Juilliard had very stiff accents bordering on the British, and were very presentational and grand with their gestures. And it took them a long time to get rid of this … and then they just became extraordinary, because of their understanding of the language and of the whole canon of Western dramatic literature, and their ability to command a stage. Their technique, their craft was an incredible base, and then they filled it in after going to Juilliard. Now I think there has been a real sea change, where the craft is the best in the country but they also have the gut-level, American-style, truly connected emotional life going as well, alongside the brilliant technique.

Do you feel that developing new plays is getting harder as the country seems to be less interested in language?

DOWLING: No, because most of the writers are not writing plays of language; they're writing plays of action. Most of them wouldn't know an iambic pentameter if it stood up and bit them, and they write very colloquial, downbeat kind of dialogue. And that's where Juilliard has another role to play, because of the Playwrights program. They have to be encouraging writers to see things broader, bigger, and theatrical in context—not always to be writing screenplays, which are what most of the plays that come across my desk are. They're written in the form of theater pieces, but basically they're intended to get the writer ending up somewhere in Hollywood.

Emily Mann (Photo by Joan Marcus)

CAMERON: I think what "new plays" means is changing and expanding. New dramaturgy is not necessarily language-centered work. So observing the challenges that certain heavily language-oriented writers are facing is not necessarily the same thing as saying new plays are having trouble being developed. I think we're all looking for new models for how to develop plays, and what has become apparent is that some of the old patterns of play development, which were facilitated by certain funding mechanisms, are now harder to uphold as the world around us and workshop methods have changed.

Are the forces of commercialization and financial pressures affecting actors' choices of where and when they work, and the kind of work they're willing to take?

HOWARD: I think there's a sense of entitlement—and not just with theater. I won an award from my graduate school last year, Purdue. There was a roundtable discussion in which people in all different occupations were all saying the same thing: we can't get people who want to intern, we can't get young people out of college who want to play small roles; they think they should be playing leads immediately. Interns ask me, when am I going to start casting? And my answer is, "How would you know how to cast?"

DOWLING: When young people come out of Juilliard or N.Y.U. or the program at Guthrie with huge debts, they will inevitably be drawn to the TV contracts that are waiting for them, and very often at that point, we lose them. They come out of training programs believing that they'll stay true to their roots and to their idea of theater as the dominant art form, but it doesn't happen, because how can they afford to do that? We can't pay them the way that film and TV can, and that's where they go. If I hear once, I hear a hundred times, "Oh I can't do a show at the Guthrie or at the Roundabout or M.T.C. because I've got to wait for pilot season." That's the reality of what we live in, and it's just a constant battle to make sure that people get the right sorts of scholarships, the right kind of financial aid, so that they're not ending up with these awful, heavy burdens of loans that they have to deal with.

THOMS: At the end of the day, who loves doing commercials? It is literally just a way to pay bills. But the kind of work that I want to do is not financially viable. I want to tell stories about black women in which they are real people first—not those stereotypes of women who are beat on by men, or who are fabulous all the time. I went through all this training to do stories that are different, and that don't exist. I am dedicating myself to telling these stories and I have to find a way to make money to do that. On Cold Case I'm playing a cop, so that in my spare time I can work on low-budget films with friends that I can be proud of.

Tracie Thoms

What trends have you begun to notice in the development of new and/or classical work in this country, and what are the challenges for actors and writers graduating today?

HOWARD: I think that people get impressed by flashy directors who feel that their interpretation and (my favorite word) "deconstruction" of a classical work is more important than the work itself. A good example of that was seen last year Off-Broadway in Hedda Gabler, when Hedda was literally stapling gladiolas to the wall, and threw things at her husband; it had nothing to do with Ibsen. And when people say, "Well it shouldn't have anything to do with Ibsen"—then why do the play? I don't mind a director having a fresh interpretation, as long as it means something relative to the original author.

DOWLING: I think there's some really great classical work being done—some of the great directors turning their hands to Shakespeare and actors willing to take on these great roles still exist, and long may it last. You still see people flocking to places like the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland and you see theaters like the Chicago Shakespeare opening a few years ago on Navy Pier, of all places! To have a Shakespeare theater right there in the heart of commercial land in Chicago is a brilliant move. Classical work is well and alive in America.

MANN: The challenges the young writers are going to face are much of what the actors face. But the actors in some ways will be able to make a rather seamless patchwork, if you will, and still have a warm coat; they are more mobile in terms of the craft than directors or writers. You have to learn so many new skills to write and direct for films or TV. Finding out how you juggle the options out there is going to be the biggest challenge, and how to stay true to your craft and your growth as an artist and come back to the theater.

THOMS: It's a weird era—look at the content of the work. Certain things are considered wholesome and received better. Other things that are risqué, anti-American … it's all about the red states and the blue states. I just did Rent, a movie about gays, lesbians, and drag queens—now, how do we market that to middle America? Will we as artists reclaim the industry and say, "You're not going to tell us what is artistic"? We're being controlled right now. It is important to say something and be willing to produce one's own work. Collaborating and networking are really important for actors right out of school, in the sense of building together, backing each other up in the artistic world, and getting the work done.

Do you feel that there's a saturation point in the market for actors today? There are so many conservatories turning out so many actors.

HOWARD: Not as far as educated actors go, but a lot of people don't care about education; they care about a face or a body. Someone who worked for me moved to California and is now a casting director for the TV show House. Everyone in her office looks at her and asks, "How do you know these specific actors?" And she says, "Because that's what we did in our office in N.Y.—looked for trained actors we knew," and even if they didn't get the job, the audition would be so impressive they would be called back for another role. In California, where most of the work comes from now, a lot of people simply cast by looking at a headshot and then bring them in.

As contemporary theater reinvents itself, those in the industry must step back and ask: What are the opportunities? What are the challenges? What is the need for theater of today?

CAMERON: I think that's a legitimate question, one that people are talking about behind closed doors and that nobody's willing to admit. I'm not sure why, but rarely a month goes by where I don't see somebody is starting a new M.F.A. program. A couple of years ago, Dell'Arte Players in Blue Lake, Calif., transitioned into an M.F.A. program, but at the time they did, there were virtually no commedia-based training programs, so they were about accrediting people in a very particular physical style. But I'm not sure what unique contribution all the other new M.F.A. programs are making to the larger field. There's no way that the field can absorb the full number of actors graduating annually.

Do you think Juilliard and the industry are opening up in terms of diversity?

HOWARD: It's very easy for me, as an upper-middle class white guy, to say that it's working and that non-traditional casting is getting better, but the fact is that I think it is. And I just say to those good actors who are people of color—hang in.

THOMS: There's a feeling that certain ethnic groups have "boxes" of experience and should portray that. If you're Asian, you should dress Asian and talk Asian. An Asian girl can be the girlfriend of the lead, but not the lead. If you're black, you have to do "black stuff." Chekhov is not allowed—that's out of the box. But we can do hip-hop, sing, dance and do August Wilson all day long. To make people see things differently, you really have to persuade them. Right now there are so many people of color coming out of training programs that it's an exciting time. August Wilson and Marion McClinton felt that Juilliard may have neutralized our blackness, but then they met me and Anthony Mackie and they were impressed. Change is coming and it's really exciting.

Are you optimistic about the future of the American theater?

CAMERON: Absolutely. I think we're at a moment of reinvention. We can either say, "O.K., we're going to continue to behave exactly as we've always been behaving" … or we can take a step back and say, "What are the opportunities out there? What are the challenges? What is the need for theater of today—not 50 years ago?" And I'm inspired, by the creativity of people looking to answer these questions, by the number of people who train and want to give their lives to this on an annual basis.

Mahira Kakkar (Group 33) recently appeared Off-Broadway in the Playwrights Horizons production of Christopher Durang's play Miss Witherspoon, which was directed by Emily Mann.