Photo of Tom Story and Chris Dinolfo by Danisha Crosby

On its unique and extraordinary journey to Broadway, Next Fall was deemed “the little play that could.” In a commercial arena filled with jukebox musicals, long running mega hits, and star driven imports, Next Fall offered something simple and genuine:  a well-told, honest, character-driven story.

Reviewing for the New York Times, theatre critic Charles Isherwood challenged theatre-goers to embrace the play for its honest examination of big issues on a human scale:

“Plays that manage to move and to entertain, to open fresh windows onto familiar subjects and treat the big matters of life and death with unsensational simplicity, have become so rare that Mr. Nauffts’s accomplishment feels uncommonly heartening. A playwright has taken the measure of a painful passage in a handful of lives, depicted it with sensitivity, warmth and humor, and shaped from these tremors a drama that speaks in a quiet voice of momentous things.”

In many ways, this play is “classic” Round House. It’s a moving story with great roles for actors, produced in the intimacy of our Bethesda space.

This production marks the return of director Mark Ramont, who gave us a spectacular production of Amadeus last season as well as Midwives several years ago. Mark has a gift for creating honest, emotionally complex action on stage. With his wonderful cast of Round House regulars and DC-area favorites, he has made a production full of heart and humor.

Join us at Next Fall. I think you’ll agree that it is an extraordinary piece of work – just what you’ve come to expect from Round House.

- Blake Robison, Producing Artistic Director

The area premiere of Next Fall is onstage at Round House Theatre Bethesda February 1 – 26, 2012.

Director Mark Ramont speaks to the cast during the first rehearsal of Next Fall

I recently spoke with Mark Ramont, director of the upcoming production of Next Fall. Performances run at Round House Bethesda from February 1 – 26. You’ll remember Mark’s great work at Round House on last season’s hit production of Amadeus. It was wonderful catching up with him. Here’s our talk.

 Jacqueline Lawton: During our chat last year during Amadeus, you mentioned that the first play you ever directed was The Glass Menagerie, a beautiful and haunting memory play by Tennessee Williams. Geoffrey Nauff’s Next Fall is also a memory play. What is it about looking back that makes for such a wonderful and poignant theatrical conceit?
Mark Ramont: I don’t think I would call Next Fall a memory play because it begins, ends, and is solidly set in the present. The past does, however, play a very important part in making sense of what is happening in the present – both for the audience and for Adam, the play’s protagonist. I think all of us have a foot in the past as well as the present; we are constantly investigating how we got where we are. Past events shape us: they affect our decisions, our relationships, our ability to grow and learn. In this particular case, I think the past is essential to finding the hope in Adam’s journey. He is able to learn from his mistakes and from Luke’s extraordinary ability to forgive and accept.

JL: In that same conversation, you shared that working with Anne Bogart on The Baltimore Waltz defined your rehearsal process. Can you talk a bit more about this process? For instance, what is the first day like for you and the cast? Do you engage in certain exercises or rituals throughout the process? If so, what are they?
MR: I approach rehearsals from the point of view that what we do in the theatre is tell stories, and we tell those stories through actions. With that in mind, I spend a good portion of my rehearsals sitting around the table determining exactly what that story is. I take the play’s natural scenes and have each actor write about what happens in that scene from their character’s perspective – and in the first person. This helps the actor discover the voice of their character and to entwine it with their own. I have one very important rule in rehearsals: we try everything. I have an idea, we try it; the actor has an idea, we try it. That’s what rehearsals are all about – trying things in order to discover the best and most interesting choices.

JL: And since we last talked, you stepped down as the Director of Theatre Programming at Ford’s Theatre and are now teaching theatre at California State University in Fullerton. They are so fortunate to have you! How do you balance your course load with freelance directing?
MR: This is the first freelance directing I’ve done, so I’m kind of discovering that. I have a colleague taking my classes for the two weeks I’ll miss and my assistant on the show I’m directing at school (Spoon River Project – a new adaptation of Spoon River Anthology) will take over my rehearsals for the first two weeks. If I get back and everything’s a mess, I’ll never do it again! I’m back doing Next Fall because a) I love the piece and have been dying to do it since I first encountered it and b) I had made a commitment to Round House before even hearing about the job at CSUF. We had already cast the show and the designs were well under way when I got the offer. Keeping my commitment to Blake and Round House was a condition of my accepting the job, and Fullerton was wonderfully supportive and understanding. In the future, though, I probably won’t take on a freelance gig that eats this deeply into my teaching schedule. I don’t think it’s fair to my students – and, honestly, I really miss them and miss being there in those important first weeks.

JL: What excited you about directing Round House’s production of Next Fall? What made you say yes?
MR: I saw the NYC production when it was at Playwrights Horizons (before it went to Broadway) and fell in love with it. It grapples with the challenge of being gay and a Christian in a way that honors both sides and treats both viewpoints with respect, dignity, and humanity. Reconciling the two has been a big challenge in my own life, one that has kept me distant from my own family and my own roots. I still haven’t made peace with it – and I’m not sure they are reconcilable. I applaud Geoffrey for taking on a topic that pushes such emotional buttons in so many people. I also love all of the people in the play. They’re not just mouthpieces for different points of view, but complex, rich characters who struggle with these issues in important ways. No one has it all figured out, and that strikes me as very, very real. I’m very grateful to Blake for asking me to do it. He saw the play in NYC and, like me, knew that he wanted to do it. I feel very, very fortunate that he thought of me immediately as the right director for the project.

JL: Next Fall tells the story of a couple who couldn’t be more different from one another. Luke is a struggling actor with a promising career and a fundamentalist Christian, while Adam is in a constant state of mid-life crisis, a hypochondriac, and also agnostic. They’re an unlikely pair who finds great love in one another. What can audiences learn from Luke and Adam’s relationship?
MR: Honestly, I don’t want to get into that a whole lot. If we do our job well, people will be moved deeply by this play. That emotional connection will allow the play to live with them beyond the performance, and they’ll come to their own conclusions about what the play is saying about relationships – and what they can learn from it. Theatre IS a great teaching tool, but unlike the pulpit or the classroom, it doesn’t work very well when it tries to teach us WHAT to think, but stimulates our minds enough to draw our own lessons. One of the things that I really love about the writing is that Geoffrey really embraces ambiguity: he raises a lot of questions that he never really answers.

JL: Smartly written, at once hilarious and heartbreaking, Next Fall addresses important issues such as faith, sexuality, addiction, the role of the family, the impact of friendship and the reality of disappointed hopes for one’s life. How have these ideas influenced your approach to the play?
MR: I’m not a hugely conceptual director. For me, the fun of directing a play is the exploration. The ideas that Geoffrey raises in this play excite, confuse, fascinate, and move me. I’ve pulled together the best team of actors and designers that I know so that when I get in the room with all of them, we can all really have a blast tearing these issues apart, figuring out what makes them tick, and putting them all back together in a form that can communicate with an audience: in other words, create a living, breathing slice of humanity that will speak to our audience, get THEM excited about these ideas and issues to the extent that they want to explore them in their own lives and with the other people in their lives.

JL: If there is one thing you want audiences to walk away knowing or thinking about after experiencing Next Fall, what would that be?
MR: Ultimately, it’s all about relationships on both a macro and a micro scale. I’d love it if the audience thought about the people that they love in their lives and ask if what they believe brings them closer or pushes them away from those they love. Whenever we’re reminded about how fragile life is, how temporary all of this is – and this play is very good about reminding us about all of that – I think it gets us re-examining what we value, what we think is important, what our priorities are, and how we treat people in the pursuit of all of that – especially those we love. That’s a lot to think about.

JL: What’s next for you as a director?
MR: Spoon River Project at Cal State Fullerton. After that, nothing on my plate, so if there are any artistic directors out there looking for someone with free time in the summers or who doesn’t mind rehearsing over Christmas . . .

- Jacqueline Lawton

Jacqueline Lawton is a member of Round House’s Artists’ Roundtable

Photo of Michael Brusasco and Kate Cook by Danisha Crosby

Putting a novel on stage is no easy task, and it becomes all the more daunting when it is one of the most beloved stories in all of English literature. Who among us doesn’t have their own image of the Bennet girls, a particular take on Mr. Darcy, or a picture in their mind of the Pemberley estate? Reading the novel is a deeply personal experience – just you, the text, and your favorite armchair for comfort.

A theatrical adaptation is something different altogether. Bringing these famous characters to life is a shared experience between actors and audience. We imagine together. And we experience the story through the immediacy of live performance. Whatever your previous exposure to Pride and Prejudice may be, you’re bound to re-discover it today and find something new.

A great adaptation honors the source material yet takes it in a new direction. This script succeeds on both counts. All of the familiar scenes and characters are here, made vivid by this wonderful company of actors. But the production is much more than “Masterpiece Theatre – Live.” It has a style and theatricality of its own creation. Elizabeth lives at the center of our story, and we move rapidly from one chapter of her life to the next. It’s a journey that is fluid, stylish, character-driven, and uniquely theatrical.

For me, Austen’s story is a romance wrapped inside a comedy of manners. Two couples form the center of the romance. Jane and Bingley enjoy a simple kind of love – sincere, trusting, straight forward. Elizabeth and Darcy’s love is more complex – complicated by their mutual pride and uncommon prejudices – yet somehow deeper and more meaningful for its spirited independence. Swirling around these couples is a cornucopia of Regency characters who Austen satirizes with loving wit. They behave badly but properly, epitomizing society’s absurd codes of behavior. In the end, Pride and Prejudice confirms our deepest wish that true love exists beyond the confines of social convention.

- Blake Robison, Producing Artistic Director

Pride and Prejudice, directed by Blake Robison, is onstage at Round House Bethesda thru December 31, 2011.

Jacqueline Lawton: To begin, can you tell me how long have you been acting? What was the first play that you ever worked on as an actor? What did you learn from that experience that remains with you today?
Michael Brusasco: I have been working professionally for over 15 years. The first play I ever did was The Jungle Book in the second grade. I was Baloo the Bear. We would tour nursing homes around town. My first paying job was playing the Evil Queen in Snow White and the Seven Dorks (yes, dorks) when I was 17 years old. It was a ‘fractured fairytale’ in a local amusement park’s theater. It was super campy, lazzi heavy, and still one of the best experiences of my life. You know what I got out of that? Making people laugh for a living – as a full time job – is one of the best jobs in the world.

JL: Why did you decide to get into theater? Was there someone or a particular show that inspired you?
MB: Oh, I am sure it’s because from an early age I had a relentless desire to always be the center of the universe. I loved the attention I would get from adults whom I could make laugh. It wasn’t until seeing a production at Portland Center Stage when I was twelve that I realized the power of theatre. It was Jim Edmonson’s production of The Comedy of Errors in which the setting was New Orleans Mardi Gras. My first Shakespeare play, the first 10 minutes (with the gargantuan monologue by Egeon) was a blur, I couldn’t understand a thing. I was bored and felt stupid. Then all of sudden the foreign sounds the actors were making clicked. Everything made sense. The world opened up, and I felt transported. By the time Dromio of Syracuse (the great Ray Porter) was describing his new-found paramour Nell the kitchen wench, I actually fell out of my chair laughing. To experience that, to understand that this group of people was the cause of my joy, well, I had to get in on that. Fast.

JL: Of course, you played Mr. Darcy under Blake Robison’s direction at Utah Shakespeare Festival to great acclaim. What excited you about revisiting this character in Round House Theatre’s production of Pride and Prejudice?
MB: Many actors have the experience of the unconsciousness still working on the part even after closing performance. Months down the road, I will find myself working on something unrelated when an idea bubbles up from the recesses about a past performance. I end up exasperated thinking, “Of course! Why didn’t I think of that while I was doing it!!!!” So the Round House production will allow me to put those “post-mortem” thoughts into practice. I just did another production of Pride and Prejudice this summer. It was a different adaptation, but Mr. Darcy is Mr. Darcy no matter how you slice it. So this is my third take on the guy. There’s a confidence now that I didn’t have the first time which will (cross fingers) allow me to dig even deeper and take more risks.

The other thing I’m excited about is working with Blake. For the first production, he came in and saved the day as a last minute replacement. By then the design, costumes, cast and most everything else was decided for him. That’s hard for a director, and he did a great job. This time around, the collaboration is his from the start. I can’t wait to see what he has in store knowing that he’s been working with the team months prior to the first day of rehearsal.

JL: Mr. Darcy is such an archetype romantic hero. He’s wealthy, dashing, and morally upright. While sympathetic and loyal, he is also difficult and aloof! My goodness, what man refuses to dance at a ball! What, if anything, do you have in common with him? What is the most challenging part of bringing Mr. Darcy to life?
MB: Oh he’s not the only one who would refuse to dance at a ball! He and I would be quite comfortable in the corner of the room while the rest danced their hearts out. But the thing I relate to most is that the guy can keep a secret. He’s not the one to spill the beans. What’s hard about that is I really don’t talk for the first half of the play! The novel affords you glimpses into the mind of this stoic personality, but on stage I don’t get the luxury of a voiceover letting you know what’s going on. That’s the fun though.

JL: This adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, written by Joseph Hanreddy and J. R. Sullivan, is wonderful. It’s as romantic and lush as the novel, while still managing to offer a sharp critique of 19^th century society. What is your favorite moment in the play?
MB: I love the moment where Elizabeth arrives at Pemberley with the Gardiners. Joe and Jim have written the scene brilliantly. Darcy’s emotional armor is completely off, he’s surprised, relieved, overjoyed, and embarrassed. It’s deliciously romantic and funny.

JL: First published in 1813, Pride and Prejudice remains Jane Austen’s most popular novel. Why do you feel this story of family and love remains such a classic today? Also, what advice do you think Mr. Darcy would give to contemporary women about dating and relationships?
MB: It’s one of the great “opposites attract” stories.  It echoes Beatrice and Benedict from Much Ado About Nothing: we love to see a couple duke it out until they realize they are madly in love with each other. That great clash gives us all hope in our own relationships we can come out on the other side of our differences as better people. That said, I think Mr. Darcy is the last person you want advice from when it comes to dating and relationships. Seriously. Ask Bingley. Or, perhaps, find another novel with a less satirical bent.

JL: If there is one thing you want audiences to walk away knowing or thinking about after experiencing Pride and Prejudice, what would that be?
MB: “That was a lot funnier than I thought it would be.”

JL: What’s next for you as an actor? 
MB: As always, there are about 5 irons in the fire, and I don’t want to jinx anything by mentioning it. The main goal for the coming year is stay closer to home. Honestly, I want my next project to be about adopting a dog. I’ve been considering getting one for about 4 years now, and I think the time has finally come to find a little guy to make my already blessed life more amazing.

Pride and Prejudice is onstage at Round House Bethesda from November 23 thru December 31, 2011. Special holiday performances are scheduled December 18 – 31.

- Jacqueline Lawton

Pride and Prejudice

Jacqueline Lawton: To begin, can you tell me how long have you been acting? What was the first play that you ever worked on as an actor? What did you learn from that experience that remains with you today?
Kate Cook: I didn’t begin acting until college. I wandered into a theater class and it changed my life, basically. The first show I acted in was Smoke on the Mountain by Alan Bailey and Connie Ray. It’s the story of a well-intentioned family of traveling gospel singers who are absolutely falling apart at the seams. I learned some sign language for that show, which was great fun. I also learned a good deal about truth telling: what it means to live honestly and vulnerably in a moment. I saw it in my fellow actors, and it made me want to be brave.

JL: Why did you decide to get into theater? Was there someone or a particular show that inspired you?
KC: Since I did, officially, discover theater quite late, it’s only in retrospect that my influences have come clear: The Sound of Music and Les Miserables. Singing nuns and dying prostitutes, that’s how I spent my childhood.

My decision to become an actor unfolded over time, with much fear and trembling. I just knew that important questions were being asked in the theater, and truth was being sought, and complexity was being embraced. I wanted to be around that. I believe in storytelling, and I believe when we tell stories anywhere near right, as Frederick Buechner says, we hit on something universal. So by telling one story in all its particularity, we are, in effect, telling the story of humanity.

JL: Of course, you played Lizzie under Blake Robison’s direction at Utah Shakespeare Festival to great acclaim. What excited you about revisiting this character in Round House’s Pride and Prejudice?
KC: I totally wanted another crack at it! To me, Lizzie is like Hamlet or Falstaff or Blanche DuBois in that she’s beautifully drawn and virtually impossible to get right. Plus, a mythology has risen up around her, she has become something more than what she is, which makes it a bit tough to find the person in there…I find her bottomless. There’s always more to discover. There are always surprises. It was also an absolute joy working with Blake and Michael and Jack and Joe last time, and I’m really excited to collaborate again. Not to mention, there’s no such thing as a repeat: this time, the play will be its own, utterly new creation, with a wonderful new group of people. How could I pass that up?

JL: Lizzie is one of Jane Austen’s most beloved and admirable heroines. She’s intelligent, witty, outspoken, and wants desperately to marry for love, not convenience. What, if anything, do you have in common with her? What is the most challenging part of bringing Lizzie to life?
KC: Lizzie is the ultimate in quick-witted charm, whereas I’m very good at being awkward. I’m not nearly as shrewd as she is either. I’m more like Jane in my willingness to trust in folks’ goodness and good intentions. But I do love to laugh. I love observing society’s weirdnesses, and I maintain high expectations for the men in my life. We do have that in common.

JL: This adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, written by Joseph Hanreddy and J. R. Sullivan, is wonderful. It’s as romantic and lush as the novel, while still managing to offer a sharp critique of 19^th century society. What is your favorite moment in the play?
KC: Ooh, I can’t tell you that. But thanks to Joe and Jim, we do have a fabulous adaptation on our hands.

JL: First published in 1813, Pride and Prejudice remains Jane Austen’s most popular novel. Why do you feel this story of family and love remains such a classic today? Also, what advice do you think Lizzie would give to contemporary women about dating and relationships?
KC: Pride and Prejudice endures because we love watching two unyielding people decide to yield to one another and yield to love itself. It’s the When Harry Met Sally for the Regency set. As for advice, I suppose Lizzie would tell contemporary woman not to settle, right? But we also know that Jane Austen never settled and, unlike Lizzie, never married. So I like to think, she would bravely tell us that we’re not defined by our love stories, we are defined by the way we honor the calling in our hearts. But perhaps that’s kind of obtuse…Maybe Lizzie would simply tell us to go for walks and speak our minds and treat our families well.

JL: If there is one thing you want audiences to walk away knowing or thinking about after experiencing Pride and Prejudice, what would that be?
KC: I very much hope that the audiences are swept away by the story, that they leave the theater changed in some way. But I also hope it manifests differently for each person.

JL: What’s next for you as an actor?
KC: Back to Chicago! I have some irons in the fire there…

In the next installment of the RHT Blog, I’ll chat with Michael Brusasco, who plays Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice.

- Jacqueline Lawton

KJ Sanchez and Emiliy Ackerman

Three years ago, playwrights Emily Ackerman and KJ Sanchez began interviewing service men and women returning from and preparing for deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq. Emily and KJ are both sisters of veterans: KJ has five brothers who served in the military during the Vietnam War and Emily has two brothers (USMC) who have served multiple deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. Having a personal investment as they do, it was vital to them that their play sidestep the politics of this war and rather pay close attention to what they felt was most vital: to find out what the experience of returning home is like for these men and women, and to ask how we, as families, as a culture, a society, and as a country can help.

When Emily and KJ began interviewing servicemen, they met and listened to many extraordinary people who took great risk, both personally and professionally, to talk to them. The hardest part of the creative process was deciding which stories to tell, and which would not be included. For guidance through this process, Emily and KJ created a few rules. First, if their audience could easily find the material in the news, they didn’t need it in the play. Next, they decided to go deep, rather than wide, so if they couldn’t do a subject full justice and discuss all aspects, it wasn’t fair to include a superficial treatment.

They decided about halfway through the interviewing phase to concentrate on the Marine Corps. Through a stroke of good luck, they spent time at Camp Pendleton and decided that the culture and core values of the Marine Corps provided an interesting lens through which to look at the issue of coming back from deployment and re-entering one’s life, family and society. It is important to note that Ackerman and Sanchez do not mean to say with this play that what you will see is everyone’s experience coming home from deployment – they recognize that there are as many truths and experiences as there are men and women serving. The interviews were conducted in private settings, after much trust was gained, and to honor those they interviewed, Emily and KJ didn’t filter ANYTHING – including the language and irreverent sense of humor. As the Marines taught our playwrights, humor is an important part of who they are and it’s ok to laugh.

Director KJ Sanchez stated, “The Marines we encountered all have very different perspectives, different experiences and realities, and this play is in no way meant to represent them all. It is not our intention to make any blanket statements about the Marine Corps. There are as many truths, opinions, and experiences as there are brave and dedicated people serving, and we would not suggest that the few characters you hear from represent the whole. To those who welcomed us into their homes and their lives, a heartfelt and sincere thank you. You have taught us how to see, listen, and understand. Your names are not listed in the program’s ‘special thanks’, to respect your confidentiality, but we hope you know how truly grateful we are. We honor your commitment, dedication, and sacrifice.”

In addition to appearing at regional theatres across the country, ReEntry has been performed, by invitation of Command, on U.S. bases and military sites domestically and abroad, including US Marine Corps bases Quantico, Lejeune, Parris Island, and Beaufort Air Station. Sanchez and the ReEntry cast also performed at VA hospitals and Armed Forces national conferences. The company just returned from Europe, where they performed at eleven US Army bases in Germany and Italy. Attendance was required training for soldiers getting ready for and returning from deployment.

RHT’s production marks the company’s most extended residency in the DC area. Following the performances at Round House, the company travels to Kentucky for a run at Actor’s Theatre of Louisville.

To learn more about ReEntry and watch videos related to the production, visit the American Records website at www.americanrecordstheater.org/reentry

ReEntry is onstage at Round House Bethesda thru October 30, 2011

Jacqueline Lawton: When crafting the play ReEntry, how did you decide which characters/points of views would appear in the play? Along with that, which character’s voice or situation was the most difficult to capture for the stage?
KJ Sanchez: I don’t think we had any trouble putting these interviews on the stage. You see, Marines are inherently theatrical: they’re funny, they’re good at telling stories, and they’re not afraid to speak their mind. As for “who” to put into the play, it was difficult, but was an intuitive process. We did have one rule though, if we can’t really delve into it, then that subject deserves its own play. We didn’t want to cover any part of the coming home experience superficially, which is why there’s no discussion of Veteran’s benefits in the play; that’s too important a subject to cover superficially.

JL: In addition to performances at Urban Stages (New York), Two River (New Jersey) and Centerstage (Baltimore), ReEntry has been presented at conferences, military bases, and VA hospitals. What excited you about bringing this play to Round House? What made you say yes?
KJS: I jumped at the chance to bring the show to Round House. This is a perfect theatre for this play. First, I was here a few years back directing 26 Miles and just loved working with Blake and the staff. And of course, there are so many service members, providers, support groups, families, and caregivers in this area. Plus, I love the DC area and try to work here as often as I can.

JL: When discussing the play, you are clear to point out that there is no sneaky political agenda. What do you want audiences to walk away knowing or think about?
KJS: Arg. That’s a question I’d like to pass on, if you don’t mind. Our audience might be reading this before they see the play. But I can share with you my own take-away. Until this play, I always thought about military service men and women in terms of how I see them, you know? What I thought of what war fighters do, etc. And I now am more conscious of how they see me, what they think of us civilians.

JL: What surprised (continues to surprise you) you about ReEntry? Whether it’s the audience response or your own response when directing it for a new audience?
KJS: What surprises me is the degree to which the military community has looked to this play as a way of starting a dialogue. We just got back from performing at USMC Camp Lejeune and Army garrisons throughout Germany and Italy. All these bases are using the play as a tool to de-stigmatize getting help and also the hunger in civilian audiences for some kind of connection to those that are serving.

JL: What’s next for you as a director?
KJS: I’m in development for a new American Records play: Death for a Living, a play with music based on interviews with people who work with death for a living. (It’s actually wonderfully funny at times, and very poignant at others.) I’m also going back to acting – for the first time in ten years! I’ve written a one-woman show called Highway 47, which is about a land feuds, inheritance, heritage, and who we become when we lose our parents. You can see I like to fool around with very “light” subjects, right? LOL.

- Jacqueline Lawton

ReEntry is onstage at Round House Bethesda October 18 – 30, 2011. Tickets for members of the Military (with ID) are $10. Check the ReEntry page on this website for more info.

Jacqueline Lawton is a member of Round House Theatre’s Artists’ Roundtable

Director KJ Sanchez and the cast of ReEntry with Deputy Commanding General of U.S. Army in Europe Major General James C. Boozer, Sr.

Jacqueline Lawton: To begin, can you tell me how long have you been directing? What was the first play that you ever directed? What did you learn from that experience that remains with you today?
KJ Sanchez: I started my career as an actor – working at theatres across the country, and doing voice-over work and film and television in New York. I was also a member of Anne Bogart’s SITI Company, during the early years of the company’s life. Working as we did with Anne, it was a pretty natural step to directing – in that she welcomes the actor to think in terms of the “big picture.” I was playing Ophelia in Jon Jory’s production of Hamlet and I became obsessed with her journey: she’s the perfect daughter, the perfect girlfriend and here, in this play, where everyone is focused on Hamlet’s madness, there is this innocent who is losing her mind, who just falls between the cracks. I wanted to make a play about her. So I proposed a project to the University of Washington School of drama’s MFA program, where I had worked as a guest artist. I called the play Too Much Water, this was in 2000…I think. It was so satisfying to make work and direct, that I soon found myself directing more and more. And creating my own work more and more as well.

JL: Why did you decide to get into theatre? Was there someone or a particular show that inspired you?
KJS: Getting into theatre was a series of awesome accidents. I was planning on being a physical therapist. Theatre was something I stumbled into, fell in love with it, and now, here I am, grateful to say I’ve been doing nothing else for the last twenty years or so.

JL: ReEntry is an honest, rich and evocative play. It is disarming, humorous, and deeply moving in its portrayal of life for Marines returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. What compelled you to conceive this play?
KJS: Thanks. The initial idea came from a friend. I had been working with the Civilians (I’m an Associate Artist) and I really loved what interview-based plays could do. Emily [Ackerman] and I (who met via the Civilians) both have brothers who are veterans. She has two brothers who have served in OEF/OIF (Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom) and I have five brothers who served during the Vietnam War era.

JL: In addition to directing ReEntry, you also co-wrote it Emily Ackerman. Can you talk about the collaborative nature of the work you did? How is creating a piece of theatre with another writer different from working on your own? What makes for a good writing partner?
KJS: I loved making this play with Emily. A good writing partner has to be someone who makes you better than you’d be on your own – and that’s true of this collaboration. I think we complement each other. I push – I tend to throw as much up against the wall and see what sticks. Emily says, “OK, let’s slow down and think about where we’re going.” That push and pull works well for us. We conducted all the interviews ourselves, we then story-boarded together, finding the arch of the play, and then she and I pretty much divvied up the tracks.  I’d work on the CO’s (Commanding Officer) track and she’d be working through Tommy’s thru-line, that sort of thing. We’re very honest with each other. We trust each other. And my very favorite thing about our collaborations: we fight – oh yeah, we really duke things out – but we’ve never had the same fight twice.

JL: In a recent interview, I read that you conducted 98 interviews that lasted an average of three hours. What was it like to speak with the military men and women as well as their families? What were some of the challenges you faced when seeking interviews? How did you overcome these challenges?
KJS: You know, to be honest, I’m not sure where that number came from and I can’t say that’s exactly true. We conducted A LOT of interviews, and compiled many hours of interviews. When we first started, the challenge was getting them to trust us. When we told Marines that we were playwrights writing a play about coming back from deployment, at first we were held at arm’s length. And rightfully so, there are a lot of plays and movies out there that grossly misrepresent what many of these individuals are experiencing. You know, there’s either the portrait of the Rambo lone wolf, tearing off his armor and fighting the bad guys single-handedly or else the screwed up vet, sitting at the end of the bar in his fading cammies. Once they trusted us, it was amazing. Everyone was so welcoming, so candid, and so glad to be helping us with our play. I put together a group of active duty and veteran service members to read each reiteration of the script and rather than telling us what the play should be, they’re read it for verisimilitude and help us contact the voices that might have been missing. They were amazing – and fully respected out autonomy.

- Jacqueline Lawton

In part two of our chat with KJ Sanchez, we’ll talk more about the creation of ReEntry.

ReEntry is onstage at Round House Bethesda October 18 – 30, 2011. Tickets for members of the Military (with ID) are $10. Check the ReEntry page on this website for more info.

Jacqueline Lawton is a member of Round House Theatre’s Artists’ Roundtable

The Fahrenheit 451 set in progress

Here’s the conclusion of my talk with Fahrenheit 451 director Sharon Ott. Fahrenheit 451 is onstage at Round House Theatre Bethesda from September 7 – October 9, 2011.

 JACQUELINE LAWTON: Written in 1953 and set in an unspecified time in the future, Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 is a brilliant and riveting cult classic. It is at once poetic and frightening in its portrayal of an overly-medicated, government-controlled, media-obsessed society. This is an America where firemen burn books, free-thought is banned, learning is stunted, conversations are monitored, and indifference is the only emotion anyone seems to feel. Why does story remain so relevant still today? What lessons do audiences today have to learn from the actions and consequences of these characters?
SHARON OTT: We’re not burning books (yet), but almost everything else that Bradbury imagined as science fiction more than 50 years ago has become true. There is so much in what the characters say that absolutely leaps off the page. It was a clarion call in the 50’s, it’s an absolute alarm bell now. Bradbury’s story has Firemen burning books as part of its narrative, but it’s really about a culture that has forgotten how to think. They’ve forgotten how to think because they’re saturated with media, over-medicated, don’t read anymore, can’t form independent opinions…sound familiar??

JL: After witnessing a woman burn alive with her books, Montag begins to question the “why” of her actions. He ponders, “There must be something in books, things we can’t imagine, to make a woman stay in a burning house; there must be something there. You don’t stay for nothing.” It is at this moment that Montag begins to break free from his paralytic state of indifference. It is a painful and lengthy process, but a necessary one for him in order to break free to independent thought. As a director, how do you approach such a beautiful, evocative, and painful moment with an actor?
SO: One of the real surprises for me in directing this piece was to discover the truly poetic quality of Bradbury’s writing. I direct a lot of Shakespeare, and teach Shakespeare and other classical writers, so I’m thrilled when a contemporary writer can “launch” his language out of a naturalistic framework and move into the poetic. I started to think of Bradbury as a more Jacobean writer, kind of a John Webster. He has a dark sense of humor that I think we’ve been able to capture in the piece, and a beautiful poetic sense, like Webster. Bradbury’s writing demands that attention to verbal detail. This isn’t just casual speech. Montag is a phenomenal character. He’s a sort of Adam, in a way. Through the course of the story, he is re-born as a thinking, feeling, human being.  It is, indeed, a painful process, but a beautiful one, I think. Through Montag, Bradbury gives us some hope for the species.

JL: This production of Fahrenheit 451 is spectacular! How did you decide on the multimedia concept?
SO: The various media components were part of my idea for the production from the beginning. When Bradbury wrote the adaptation in the 70’s, none of what we do in this production would have been possible. I guess you could have had the filmed section, but not projected in the way we do it, or blended with other media elements in the way we do it. I had always had it in my mind that the Hound could be an animated character — even though I really knew nothing about animation before I started this project. Since The Forest section in the book is such a change, I had thought it would be interesting to use film for that section…and it’s a way to add 10 more characters to the ones onstage! We also use film when the Hound tracks down one of its victims. The motion media sections are there to give us a sense of the crazy over saturated media environment that Mildred lives in.

JL: Do you feel that the multimedia elements deepen the experience of the play more than a traditional set would?
SO: There is a lot of media in the show. However, it’s all there in service to Bradbury’s story. I get kind of sick of seeing Broadway shows now where media is used in an indiscriminate fashion — just throwing a bunch of TV monitors up onstage with random imagery. My interest was to use media as part of the narrative, really integrate the elements into the story itself. It’s not there as “visual noise”, but, hopefully, to help move forward the narrative.

JL: What were some of the challenges you faced in bringing the technical elements together?
SO: As for challenges…yikes! I can’t begin to tell you how difficult it was to put the first production together. It took me two years just to do the groundwork for the thing. However, that was part of the challenge.

JL: If there is one thing you want audiences to walk away knowing or thinking about after experiencing this production of Fahrenheit 451, what would that be?
SO: Hmmm…I would never want to reduce a great work of art, which I think Fahrenheit 451 is, to a single thought, but I guess it would be…Start thinking, start reading, don’t stop feeling…the forces of darkness may be closer than you know.

JL: What’s next for you as a director?
SO: I directed The Tempest in June for Georgia Shakespeare, and then had just a little bit of time off before this production of Fahrenheit 451, so I’m actually going to enjoy teaching for a while! I do have two productions I’m looking forward to doing at the Savannah College of Art and Design with the students — John Cariani’s Almost, Maine, and Karin Coonrod’s “performative text” of two Flannery O’Connor short stories, Greenleaf and Everything That Rises Must Converge. I’m really excited about the O’Connor short stories.  As you may know, she was born in Savannah, and lived her adult life in Milledgeville, not too far away. These are both fantastic stories and I can’t wait to delve into Flannery’s strange, dark, humorous, and startling world. Looks like I’m also going out to Seattle again in the spring to work with Maestro Gerard Schwarz and the Seattle Symphony on the opera Bluebeard’s Castle with sets by Dale Chihuly as well. After that, we’ll see what comes up!

- Jacqueline Lawton

Jacqueline Lawton is a member of Round House Theatre’s Artists’ Roundtable

Director Sharon Ott talks to the cast during the first rehearsal of Fahrenheit 451.

I recently spoke with multiple award-winning director, producer, and educator Sharon Ott, who is directing Round House’s production of Fahrenheit 451, which runs at RHT Bethesda from September 7 – October 9, 2011. Here’s part one of our talk.

JACQUELINE LAWTON: First and foremost, you have had an astonishing career in the theatre as a director, artistic director, producer, and educator. To begin, what was the first play that you ever directed? What did you learn from that experience that remains with you today?
SHARON OTT: The first play I directed was an obscure Polish play called The Marriage by Witold Gombrowicz. I re-read it a couple of years ago and couldn’t make heads or tails of it! I think I’ve lost too many brain cells or something! I directed it at The Odyssey Theater in Los Angeles with actors who were classmates at Cal Arts or had been in a company in Amsterdam, Holland with me. Most of my early paid work in theatre was as an actress with very experimental companies. I had been in a company that was based part time in Amsterdam and part time in New York at La Mama directed by a Belgian director. We were fearless, and maybe that’s the thing that has stuck with me. Fearless or foolhardy maybe, choosing a play as abstract as The Marriage, but I do try to keep that sense of fearlessness in my work.

JL: Why did you decide to get into theatre? Was there someone or a particular show that inspired you?
SO: Like most people who choose to go into theatre, I started thinking I would be an actress, hopefully a very famous one! I was the lead in both the junior and senior class plays and then went to Bennington College, primarily to continue acting. I was very attracted to Bennington’s non-resident term where I could try to get jobs in theatre!

JL: That’s fantastic! So when did you decide to become a director? Do you ever miss acting?
SO: When I was a company member with Camera Obscura, in Amsterdam, I started to think I was a director. We put our pieces together in a very collective fashion, and I began to notice that I much preferred the “gestation” process of the rehearsal period to the actual performing of the piece. We did one piece that was successful enough to have performances at various festivals and in various European venues, and I grew quite bored with performing. During one performance in Germany, I was re-directing a scene in my head and completely forgot my lines, and I knew that I had to make a change to directing.  As a young person, I had thought I would die if I didn’t act, but, once I switched to directing, I’ve never acted again, and never missed it at all.

JL: Have you ever thought of doing something different with your life? If so, what was it? And what brought you back to the theatre?
SO: After 21 years of artistic directing, at Berkeley Repertory Theater and then Seattle Rep, when I decided I wanted to pursue something else, I thought about doing foundation work and giving up directing, but just couldn’t do it. I did transition into teaching, which I adore and which I find probably the most intellectually fulfilling work I’ve ever done, but I still direct, and suspect I will direct plays for as long as I can get someone to hire me to do so! I love everything about it — the companies of artists, the opportunities to work with words, and the communal story telling of the performance itself. The only other thing I seriously considered doing was Anthropology. I tripled majored in college: theatre, anthropology, and music. I think that some of the anthropology is what eventually helped me transition into directing. You’re making a little mini-culture when you direct a play — trying to understand its rules and stuff like that.

JL: What excited you about directing this production of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 at Round House? What made you say yes and what are you most looking forward to?
SO: Fahrenheit 451 is one of the great American novels. I’ve always loved it. A couple of years ago, Tony Taccone, Artistic Director of the Berkeley Rep, my former theatre, approached me and said that BRT wanted to commission me to adapt and direct something. We looked into the rights to Fahrenheit, and found that Bradbury will only allow his adaptation to be performed. I sort of put it aside, but when I began teaching at the Savannah College of Art and Design and met all the fabulous professors there in film, animation, motion media, etc., I picked up Bradbury’s own version, and started to see a way it could be done. I’m thrilled to do it in this incarnation at Round House. I continue to believe that this is one of the great American works of art, and I think we do it justice in this production.

- Jacqueline Lawton

In part two of our blog with Sharon Ott, we’ll talk more about the multimedia production of Fahrenheit 451 that she’s staging at Round House Theatre Bethesda.

Jacqueline Lawton is a member of Round House Theatre’s Artists’ Roundtable