From its modest beginnings as a community art project in DC in 2005, PostSecret has since been a feature exhibit at MOMA and other galleries and museums, inspired 500,000 postcard submissions, accumulated 1.1 million Facebook followers, won numerous Webby awards, climbed the New York Times best-seller list in a series of five books, and logged more than half a billion website hits.

This stage adaptation, written in the style of The Vagina Monologues, will present a kaleidoscopic view of PostSecret, built out of real life stories of how the project has impacted the lives of people around the world, and feature hundreds of never-before-seen postcards.

Round House is one of a select number of regional theatres across the country chosen as a site for a workshop to develop this new play based on PostSecret. The October 2012 workshop will culminate in a public reading of the play at Round House Bethesda on Friday, October 5. More details on the workshop at Round House will be announced – watch this space.

Jason Gray Platt and Jessica Burgess

Shortly before rehearsals began, Production Dramaturg Jessica Burgess sat down to talk with Crown of Shadows playwright Jason Gray Platt about his new play.

Jessica Burgess: Rehearsals begin tomorrow. How do you feel?
Jason Gray Platt: I’m nervous and excited. I am really looking forward to working with actors and to hearing the piece tomorrow. When you write a play, it’s like you’re creating a whole new planet. When you’re working on the piece on your own, you get so set in what you hear in your head – which is really different versions of yourself. But when you get into rehearsal, you move from that one planet into a larger solar system. The play doesn’t exist until you collaborate with the actors, the director, and the designers – the universe. Also, this is by far the longest rehearsal process I have had for this piece: to have three weeks of full-on rehearsals with professional actors is a really incredible opportunity for me.

JB: When did you start writing this piece? What is was the odyssey that Crown of Shadows undertook to find its way to Round House?
JGP: In 2007, I wrote a draft of the play in graduate school while I was studying with Chuck Mee (Big Love, bobrauchenbergamerica, Hotel Cassiopeia). I continued to work on it with a director friend of mine, Jessica Fitch, and we did a private workshop of the play in the summer in 2008 in New York. After that, I held a few small readings in New York with friends.

In 2009, I submitted the play to you all at The Inkwell, where it was chosen to be a part of the 2009 Inkubator Festival at the H Street Playhouse in DC. The experience of working with The Inkwell was absolutely fantastic. The weeklong workshop really changed how I felt about the play, opening it up to me in new ways. Then you gave the script to Blake Robison, and here we are.

JB: We at The Inkwell are so happy to have found such a wonderful home for your work! Would you say that this has been a typical journey for a new play?
JGP: Most of this journey is typical in the American theatre these days – three to four years in the development process, followed by a production. The last step of this journey – a world premiere at Round House – is pretty unique. With my credits, and where I am in my career, it’s amazing to be at a theatre of this size. It’s shocking to me, still – and serendipitous.

JB: You are joining a great tradition of writers who have used Homer’s work as inspiration for a new tale. What captured your imagination about The Odyssey? Why do you think that Odysseus – as a character – has captured the imagination of so many writers? What makes Odysseus, Telemachus and Penelope eternal figures of literature?
JGP: It’s funny that you ask this question. I just saw An Iliad at New York Theatre Workshop and was thinking about the same thing – why do we tell these stories over and over again? In part, it’s because The Odyssey is one of the first great Western stories to be told, and that brings so much history to the experience of the story.

It’s fascinating to wonder what in this ancient story is relevant to contemporary society. Where does mythology fit into the contemporary world? None of us want to believe that we are beholden to these ancient stories, or that they influence who we are. We want to say, “We are who we are,” but clearly this is not true. We’re all tied to these stories – none of us are individuals, separate from these narratives. Of course, as Americans, we don’t define our national mythology in the same way as the ancient Greeks. For us, the Constitution is also a part of our mythology, as are our founding fathers – as well as The Iliad and The Odyssey. And in this election season we are fighting about our contemporary mythology.

These stories that get told and retold are, to me, the saddest stories because they show us that we, as humans, never change.

JB: In addition to The Odyssey, you drew inspiration from other writers whose work draws from Homer. The original title of the play was strive/seek/find, referencing the poem Ulysses by Lord Alfred Tennyson – which is based on the idea of Odysseus as portrayed in Dante’s Inferno. What of Tennyson’s poem resonated with you, and what of the poem still lives in the play?
JGP: This is a gross oversimplification, but one of the poem’s big thematic questions is that Ulysses has returned from his travels, grown older and has been sitting at home. He feels the draw to go back into the world and to explore again:

Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Tennyson wrote the poem at the height of the British Empire, and the poem reflects upon the Western drive to conquer, to expand, to create empire. This is another parallel that I’m trying to make to America today. As Americans, we grow up in this mythos of pushing forward, becoming somehow greater, better. We’re constantly being pushed to expand, to consume, to conquer.  This resonates with me in the poem, and is one of the central issues in the play.

JB: The idea of Western imperialism permeates the world of the play. You take it to another level in this world – into the personal. “Everyone desires to be conquered,” Penelope says to Telemachus, “it’s why they fall in love.”
JGP: Power dynamics have always fascinated me. The amphibian brain within us all, as animals and social creatures, causes us to gravitate toward hierarchy. It’s the way I look at the world – and this probably isn’t healthy – I see how people know each other, how they influence each other, what they want from each other. If you put two people in a room, and one wants something from the other that he or she does not want to give – well, this is the foundation of drama. Whether you happen to be in love with someone or a CEO talking to shareholders, you are trying to get something from someone else. We all use this hierarchy however we can to get what we want.

You can see these power dynamics in children very clearly. I am very interested in how children become the adults that they become. How do they go awry? You think of the villains and the most hated people in the world: they were children at one time, and they were essentially ruined by someone along the way. What are we passing along, how do we perpetuate the cycle of violence and hatred from generation to generation?

JB: What, if anything, about The Odyssey sows the cycle of violence?
JGP: As one of the foundational texts of the Western canon, it’s a fascinating study. But it is essentially propaganda. It’s filled with codes about Greek dominance in warfare, the supremacy of Greek gods, the superiority of Greek culture. The book is meant to tell a culture about who you are, where you come from, and the values you should live if you want to succeed. Today, we have much more crafty ways of telling people who they are supposed to be – where they should spend their money, express their values.

JB: Is this why you set Crown of Shadows in a contemporary context? How does the modern take affect the storytelling?
JGP: At its core, the play is about a family, a mother and a son. The way that kids are today and parents are today; it’s very similar to how they have always been.

The power structures in the world of the play run parallel to the country of Monaco, where there’s a figurehead, Prince Albert II, who is immensely powerful. But there is also parallel in our society to celebrities – who wield social power not political power. We have a fascination with them as something other than human beings, but instead as cultural icons. That idea of celebrity, fame, is something to which we can all relate.

JB: How has the world changed since you started writing the play? Has this influenced or shaped the world of the play in ways that you could not have anticipated in 2007?
JGP: The world has changed. When I first began writing the play, the antiwar movement was making itself heard in a way that it is no longer today. The media has essentially moved on, people just don’t care anymore.

We have officially ended the war in Iraq and, based on what happened last week in Afghanistan with the recent incident of a U.S. soldier killing 16 civilians, we will most likely be scaling back there as well. But because the play is about the aftereffects of war and not the war itself, the piece is becoming more relevant and timely. Over time, as we see veterans react to reentering society, I hope that the play will be more fitting than it has been in the past.

JB: Does Crown of Shadows typify the kind of plays that you write? What else are you working on at the moment?
JGP: Storytelling, mythology, power relationships, all this are themes in my work. But I don’t really have a sort of structure, or a type of play, that I usually create. This play is definitely more naturalistic and more typical of a contemporary American play than I usually write.

I’m currently working on two projects. The first, We Commons, is a more traditional drama about the first performance of a play in the American colonies.

Because of my education at Columbia with Charles Mee, I have also become interested in environmental theatre and moving performance into alternate spaces. So I have a piece that will be performed in a bar in NY, it’s called Fornicated from the Beatles, not my title incidentally, and that’s environmental and experiential.

JB: What is the biggest challenge you have had in crafting the story and the play?
JGP: The biggest challenge was that I didn’t want it to be a piece about one character. I didn’t want it only to be about Telemachus, but about the entire community – his mother, his classmate and girlfriend Calliope, and the many smaller characters embodied in the Suitor. At the same time, I had to find a balance in making Telemachus a character that people can identify with, even though his actions and decisions are controversial. Even if he makes decisions we disagree with, we need to understand how they got there.

The world premiere of Crown of Shadows: the wake of odysseus, is onstage at Round House Bethesda from April 11 thru May 6, 2012. The production is recommended for patrons age 17 and up as it contains brief nudity and adult situations.

The impetus for writing Crown of Shadows: the wake of odysseus arose in 2007, six years into Afghanistan and four years into Iraq, when it became clear to even the most ardent supporters that the United States had become engaged in a protracted campaign in which we lacked not only an endgame, but more frustratingly lacked even the terms by which one could declare “victory” in the battle against the abstract, shadowed notion of a non-nationed combatant. By that time, thousands had died, thousands more were physically injured, and thousands of family members were returning from the battlefield suffering from the nightmarish effects of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Compounding the difficulty of their situation, the domestic environment to which veterans returned was different than others in the history of American societies at war – there were no parades, no absolute feelings of moral justification as in World Wars One and Two; nor were there the rampant anti-war sympathies of the Vietnam era, which at least reflected a culture actively engaged in the consequences of shedding the blood of its own sons and daughters. Veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan returned to an America that, for the most part, was able to ignore the repercussions of the country’s actions. There were pithy and moving articles in the major newspapers, there was vivid imagery on televised news programs, to be sure, but the consumption of these daily summaries and statistics appeared to fulfill what most of us considered to be our duty to be aware of the seismic global action that was taking place, particularly as the years dragged on. I don’t omit myself from this lack of recognition; I was more concerned on a daily basis with the minutiae of writing, casting, and rehearsing that make up life in the theater than with the reality that Americans my own age were killing and being killed.

It was around this time that I was approached by a fellow playwright whose work frequently involves telling contemporary stories in a classic style, such as in Elizabethan verse or heightened Jacobean language. He had written just such a one-act piece about a murder in his home town, and was thinking about a companion piece that would make up a double bill. The idea was that the second one-act would invert his style: tell a classic story in a contemporary manner. The Odyssey drew me immediately for the very reason that it focused less on the archetypal battle narrative epitomized by The Iliad – a grisly topic I wouldn’t dare to imagine I could faithfully portray – but rather on the world left behind, on the story that those of us fortunate enough to remain on safe ground could relate to. Sadly, a tale of the consequences of war told two millennia ago remains piercingly relevant.

Despite its dramatic recollections and mythic interludes, The Odyssey can be seen as a simple tale of a mother and son, and of a family suffering from the repercussions of sending soldiers off to battle (for perspective, the Trojan war lasted ten years; Afghanistan is currently in its eleventh) set amongst a larger population that neglects to show compassion for the sacrifices its own people have made. This is the unadorned core that Crown of Shadows takes as its inspiration: a boy growing up without a father because of a global conflict he has little understanding of. The play is an adaption, of course. In fact it may be more accurate to say it’s a reinterpretation, a repurposing of an ur-myth in the same way that Shakespeare repurposed the Hamlet story or the sources for his history plays. There are a number of aspects of the original that I’ve jettisoned and modified to make the work my own. The Odyssey is essentially a piece of propaganda after all, in so many ways – about the preeminence of Greek culture and society, about the importance of submitting to the will of the gods, about the necessity of Greek virtues such as patience, loyalty, and prudence. Crown is decidedly not propagandist. There is no protagonist, there is no “right,” and in the end, there is no answer.

Mercifully, combat in Iraq has ended and Afghanistan is drawing to a close. But it would be naïve of us to believe that once the last American solider has returned home, the conflict has ended. Our actions have forever transformed an entire generation of young men and women, and not only the veterans who permanently carry the physical and psychological scars of the carnage. There are also their wives and husbands, their children, their siblings, the widows, the widowers, the motherless, the fatherless. One would hope that over the course of human conflict, a judicious mother would have discovered a way to tell her son that his father has been killed by a certain people in a certain place, without instilling in her son a yawning hatred for those people in that place. But we all know there is no such method. And so the sickening rhythm of violence perpetuates itself, beating on down the centuries.

I don’t delude myself. We’re putting on a play. We are not achieving world peace, we are not bringing world leaders together to bridge the seemingly infinite abyss of misunderstanding that spawns warfare. And we should not be satisfied with applause. But theater as a medium is about compassion before anything else. It is about confronting humanity in simultaneous time and space, experiencing, for a brief time, what someone else experiences, and thus participating in the most vital exercise any of us can undertake – to forgot ourselves and live as another, in the hopes of expanding the reaches of empathy.

For now we can only hope that the day will come when The Odyssey, apart from its literary merits, will have no relevance whatsoever to the world we inhabit.

-Jason Gray Platt

Jason Gray Platt is the playwright of Crown of Shadows: the wake of odysseus. The world premiere of Crown of Shadows is onstage at Round House Bethesda April 11 – May 6, 2012. Crown is recommended for patrons age 17 and up as it contains brief nudity and adult situations.

Jason Gray Platt’s work has been produced and developed around the country by American Repertory Theater, Round House Theatre, P73, Red Bull Theater, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Clubbed Thumb, Abingdon Theatre Company, The Inkwell, The Inconvenience, and Samuel French, and through residencies at The Millay Colony and Djerassi. At Vassar he was awarded the Marilyn Swartz Seven award for best play in 2005, and the Molly Thacher Kazan Memorial Prize for distinction in the theater arts in 2006. He was also the runner-up for the 2007 Princess Grace Award in playwriting and a finalist for the 2011 O’Neill Conference. Originally from Arizona, Jason now lives in Brooklyn and works for The Wooster Group. BA: Vassar; MFA: Columbia.

Blake Robison at first rehearsal of Crown of Shadows.

I’ve read a bunch of updated Greek plays recently. Perhaps there is something in the tumult of today’s world that sends us back looking for answers. The most exciting updates are not straight adaptations but wholly new plays – inspired by an event, a character, an idea that catapults the playwright into a world of his own. Jason Gray Platt’s Crown of Shadows does just that.

One day, about two years ago, Jason’s play landed on my desk with an intriguing note from my colleague Jessi Burgess, who runs an innovative play development lab in DC called The Inkwell. It said simply, “This is a Round House play.” I took it home and read it that night. What I discovered is a provocative riff on a classical story, a fresh voice, and a new play that will speak to you with passion, humor, and daring.

Taking the final chapter of The Odyssey as its cue, Crown of Shadows fuses classical themes with a contemporary sensibility. It squeezes Greek-sized passions through the filter of modern vernacular dialogue to create a world all its own. We are somewhere in the Mediterranean awaiting the return of the warrior King Odysseus. A fatherless first family clings to power in the face of political uncertainty.  Telemachus is a modern teenager, growing up in the midst of a media circus. Penelope is a radiant queen who must re-marry or lose her position and power. What happens next is the stuff that great plays are made of.

This is the seventh world premiere during my time at Round House, and I’m extremely proud of that record. We’re committed to bringing new work to the stage – producing it, putting it up there for discussion. Crown of Shadows has been read and worked and revised and read and re-drafted and worked some more. It’s time to let it live on stage. We believe in Jason and his work.  Every young playwright needs a platform to show the world what he can do. Jason’s got fire in the belly.  He has a unique voice and a provocative story to tell. We couldn’t be more excited to sign on for the ride.

- Blake Robison

Blake is Round House’s Producing Artistic Director and the director of Crown of Shadows. The world premiere of Crown of Shadows: the wake of odysseus is onstage at Round House Theatre Bethesda April 11 – May 6, 2012.

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