Collaboration Part One: The Designers

Collaboration is a word that is thrown around a lot in the theatre. Everyone says that they collaborate--"Oh, I'm working with the most wonderful collaborators" or "Our rehearsal room is so collaborative"--  and honestly you sort of have to collaborate in order to get through any process feeling like you haven't been shredded through a meat grinder. But there are certainly stories of writers who refuse to cut a single line from a script, of directors who bludgeon and remold a script into the story they want to be told as opposed to what is actually on the page, of actors refusing to say this line or do that stage action, of choreographers and directors and writers not being allowed in the same room together because if they are, they will kill each other. Having at one point or other, over the past 20 years or so, been a director, a writer, a choreographer, and an actor, I understand the burning desire to wield whatever power you may have in whatever role you may have in whatever production you may be involved in.

It's a terrifying thing, this thing we do. Don't worry, I'm not going to go on about how tough it is to be an "artist." First of all, I don't really believe in the word "art." At least I certainly don't believe a person is an artist just because they work in the arts. Every job done in the creative process is, at least in my opinion, a craft. You have to practice it in order to get better at it. Often directors starting out in the biz will ask me what they should do in order to get their career going. I always say, "You have to go and direct." It's not easy. People are, most likely, not going to be pounding down your door asking you to direct a show for them. When I first moved to New York in the early 90s, I couldn't get a directing job to save my life, and no one was scrambling to produce any of the plays I had written. I think I expected things to come easy. I was waiting for someone to hire me. It took a few years, but I finally realized that if I wanted to work in a manner that fed and fulfilled me and that allowed me to do the kind of work I wanted to do in the way I wanted to do it,  I was going to have to make that work myself. It was the best lesson I ever learned (and one that I have to keep re-teaching myself). I vividly remember doing work with friends down on the Lower East Side that we thought was daring and exciting and dangerous. And no one came. We were frustrated. At times I was furious. Why was no one taking notice? What we didn't realize though was that by doing all of that work, by practicing, we were learning and discovering what we might be. So finally, on that day when the Times showed up, we were ready. When I was told they were sending a reviewer, I panicked for about 2 seconds and then I realized, "You know, I'm ready for this to be seen. They may hate it, but what we're presenting, is what we want to present. Nothing up there is by chance." Luckily they did like it. We had practiced. We had learned. We had gotten better at our craft. So now I firmly believe that every aspect of the theatre is a craft-- a craft that if done well enough maybe, and I stress the maybe, reaches the level of art. I liken it to a Shaker chair. The Shakers believed that making something well was in itself "an act of prayer." Their striving for perfection in the making of a chair has made those chairs very costly and considered by many to be works of art. Now I used to be a proud perfectionist. Not so much anymore. It was far too costly emotionally for me, and it didn't make me a pleasant person to be around. I'm not sure perfection is possible, but I do believe that striving for it is a beautiful thing. I've just learned that it isn't probably attainable, and that fact allows me some room to breathe, and it certainly allows me freedom and joy in the process of striving for it.

Accepting and defining the work I do as a craft has been heavily influenced by designers. What they do can be mathematical at times. I mean a lighting designer is carving beauty literally out of thin air. Chris Lee is lighting both rep shows. We went to college together but didn't really know each other very well. Actually the very first show we worked on together was down here at Signature -- Side Show. Working with a new lighting designer is probably the most risky of any of the designer/director relationships. With a set designer or a costume designer you can point to something on a page and know what it is going to look like, but no matter how much you talk with your lighting designer, you really don't know if you share the same aesthetic or speak the same language until you're in tech. Chris and I just got each other aesthetically from second one. We didn't really need to discuss it.

Derek McClane is a designer I've always wanted to work with and finally, finally, on this show it has happened. Those early meetings are so very important to me. They help me find the piece 'cause sometimes I'm totally at a loss. Sitting around a table in his office throwing around ideas helped me to find the world of the play. And as each set piece comes into the rehearsal room, that world becomes more and more vivid. I also love that this set is like a jungle gym. I hate when I go to see shows and the set is treated preciously, unless it is meant to be. I like rambunctious staging and Derek has given us a set that can take it.

I didn't go to grad school, so I learned about working with designers "on the job" so to speak. Since I spent my first years in New York working under showcase contracts with no budgets, I didn't have designers. Hell, I often ran the light board. The first show I did that really taught me what a relationship with a designer could and should be was a production of A Midsummer Nights Dream at The Shakepeare Theatre Company in D.C. First of all the show had the biggest budget of any show I had worked on up until that point. The set designer on that show was Michael Fagin. Mike and I went to school together, but as with Chris Lee, we didn't really know each other very well. I do remember that when I was in a show-- Oedipus at Colonus--  that he designed at school, I thought, "I want to work with him, and when I graduate and start directing, I am going to work with him." I chose him to design Midsummer because at his "interview" he had ideas that I hadn't even thought of. Because I had not had that many opportunities to work with designers, it was exhilarating to be challenged in that way. The thing I remember most about that process was our very first design meeting together. I just wanted to talk about what the show would look like. Mike wanted to talk about the play, and we weren't getting anywhere. Mike finally said, "Let's start from the beginning. Let's start with the title. There's a decision we have to make before we can even start to talk about the literal design of the show." "What decision is that?" I asked. Mike said, "Well the dream in the title. It poses a question that we have to find an answer to." I wasn't sure what he was going on about frankly, but I was a little too embarrassed to say that out loud, so we went back and forth sort of dancing around each other until finally Mike, understandably a little frustrated, said "Joe! Who's dream is it?!" And in that moment it was like my brain cracked open. By the end of that first meeting I understood how to talk about a play with a designer, and even more importantly I understood that not only did I need to figure out from what point of view I was going to tell any tale, but I also needed to be able to articulate that point of view clearly to my collaborators. It was a great gift and one that I am forever grateful for. He has been one of the great teachers in my life, and at the beginning of every process, whether I'm working with him or not, I hear Mike's voice in my head asking, "Joe. Who's dream is it?"