People to Know - Joseph Papp

Here is a producer after my own heart. Joseph Papp was born in 1921 in Brooklyn to Jewish immigrants. He went on to be one of the most well known and respected producers in history. Papp had a true passion for Shakespeare and tried promoting his idea that there should be free Shakespeare in New York for years when he finally produced and directed Taming of the Shew on the Lower East Side in 1956. He was praised by Brooks Atkinson with a great review in the New York Times, and then his idea took off. And so the New York Shakespeare Festival began. He later moved the festival to Central Park at the Delacorte Theatre, where they still perform today.

After his success with the Shakespeare Festival he wanted to find a home where he could produce year round. In 1967 he created the Public Theatre to produce new and lesser know plays. His first big Broadway transfer was Hair, and because he did stay on as producer of Hair he received no financial benefits. This lesson learned, he went on to produce A Chorus Line and used the money to help fund his other theatres and even help start and run some Off-Broadway Theatres. He also helped produce The Pirates of Penzance, which I discovered has been produced on Broadway 26 times.

He also lead the way in non-traditional casting by using people of all colors in his plays and got involved in gay rights when Congress imposed conservative provisions on the National Endowment for the Arts and produced The Normal Heart, which discussed homophobia and the neglect of the AIDS crisis.

As a producer he brought so much talent, both directorial and in casting, that the lists could go on and on. I wish more producers would take interest in non-profits they way he did. He was able to accomplish so much with the funds from his few Broadway hits, it makes me wonder who will be the next producer to not only produce hits on Broadway, but get really involved in producing lots of theatre and lots of affordable theatre. Someone said Merrick was probably my hero, but I think so far I would have to say Joseph Papp is my hero.

Ask My Friends – Directing

Edward Coffield was one of the first people at Webster I really looked up to. He was funny, nice and very smart. He was a professor of mine at Webster University and the Production Manager at the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis. At the time I knew little about his ambitions to direct, although he had been directing around town a fair amount. Since then he has gone on to direct many more shows in St. Louis and even nominated for a Kevin Kline Award for his outstanding direction of Door to Door. He has worked as the La Jolla Playhouse, the Alley Theatre and many other theatres across the country. It is an honor for me to have someone I respect so much writing a guest posting. I asked Edward to write about directing and how he got into it.

“But what I really want to do is direct.”

This expression has of course taken on a slight wink with people who work in the theatre, but I never intended to direct, I swear I didn’t.

I always wanted to produce. Like many of us in the theatre I have a small, delicate, fragile ego, so when at the age of seven I suddenly understood billing and realized the producer’s name goes at the top of the marquee – well, my sights were set on producing.

Over the years, I have done a lot of things in the biz. I was a stage manger for a long time and then moved into production management. Along the way I have produced various things. Most recently I had the great pleasure of producing The Laramie Project: 10 Years Later for The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis. I have loved all these jobs, and they have served me well.

So how did I become a director?

Originally, I started out getting hired to re-mount shows that I had been the PSM for. Technically, I suppose, that was not directing, but it was a foot in the door. At some point someone hired me to direct a show that I had not been attached to before. I cannot say I didn’t know what I was doing -- but I will say that I have learned a great deal since then. I was lucky enough to direct in theatres with big hearts but low profiles, where I could fall on my face and the theatre world at large would never know.

At this point, I have been fortunate to direct many shows for numerous theatre companies. With no formal training as a director, I have learned a great deal by absorption – learning by doing. I also have spent thousands of hours in rehearsal watching some amazing director’s work. That has been a wonderful gift.

My successes have been great, and the failures have provided even greater lessons. I used to panic about the fact that I simply don’t understand how actors do their craft. I admire them, I adore them and I am in awe of them, but I cannot make them better actors. I am honest about that and recommend that if they need help with acting, they go get a coach. My job is to tell the story.

I seem to have a good sense for casting, and that is another gift I do not take for granted. Like many of us, I had a brief stint in front of the footlights. As I recall, I was on stage in a bunny costume, and even at the age of six, I knew the other bunny was a better actor!

I have spent a great deal of my directing career helming musicals and comedies, two genres I adore. I have already discovered that directors can be pigeon-holed, just like actors. If a producer knows you understand comedy, you are not going to get an offer to direct The Normal Heart. I seem to intellectually and emotionally understand comedy. I don’t take that skill for granted -- ever. I am a funny person, but I am not convinced that makes me able to direct comedies.

As for musicals, I was raised on them, and I believe -- as Mr. Laurents espouses -- it has to be in your bones. When most children were playing cops and robbers or cowboys and Indians, I was playing Hello, Dolly and South Pacific!

Last summer, I directed my first drama for a wonderful theatre company in St. Louis called The Orange Girls. They had invited me to direct Donald Margulies’ play Collected Stories, an intense two-hander with great roles for two actresses. I found it challenging in a totally different way. There are about three laughs in the script, and I knew how to handle those. But riding to “the dark side” was tremendous and scary and gratifying. I found that all those comedies I had directed had taught me a lot about drama -- drama is about timing in the same way that comedy is.

I have learned so much from other directors (thank you to Mr. Woolf, Mr. Barnes, Ms. Gregg, Mr. Mason), but the utmost surprise is what I have learned from the directing students who have assisted me (Shelley, Nick, Kaitlyn et al). They have been superior guides. I was always a very good storyteller, and as my friends and colleagues will tell you, I am not afraid to embellish. But I have learned from these student directors how to be a student of directing.

Now I have learned how to read a play. More importantly, I have learned how to research a play. I also have learned at what point to set all the research aside and tell the story. The director’s job is simply to tell the story with gusto, heart and tempo.

In the last year, directing for me has clicked, and I have become comfortable with it. This of course has made me understand that I have only just begun. Directing is a skill that builds over time and a craft that always offers new lessons. I am very lucky.”

My 23 Hour Day

I have done many exciting shows in my life. The most exciting are actually not theatre but more in the concert or speaking category. I have worked on concerts like Maria Carey, Pearl Jam, and even David Copperfield (oh, the stories there). Last week I worked on my biggest event here at the Harman Center with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. I worked for two jam-packed days to get ready for their speech on Global Health. If you have the time you should watch the speech.

The first day I ended up working 23 hours in a day. I had many questions about why, and I thought I would share the insight to why I made that decision. Looking back I don’t know that there is anything that I would have done differently.

The day was scheduled to start at 3:30am with the arrival of catering. At about 4:30am the Technical Director for the event company arrived. I felt that it was extremely important that I be there in the beginning of the day to meet the senior staff from the Gates Foundation and make sure things were off to a good start. Luckily for me, they were. The plan was that my assistant would come in to work part of the day with me and then go and run the other event in our second theatre. We would both be ending about the same time (midnight), and he would take the morning shift the second day so I could be well rested for the actual event, which we would both work. Then I could stay for the strike, as I was coming in at noon. Sounded like a great plan, right? Well it was, but no one counted on the video not being ready. With 6 high powered projectors, overlapping the alignment of the projectors was crucial. The projection team had to stay to get everything ready so that we did not cut into the tech / rehearsal time of day two. So I decided to stay with them, knowing I could sleep in the second day.

Would I have done anything different to not work a 23 hour day? Maybe not booked the second event at the other theatre so my assistant could have been in my place. The show must go on, as they say, and the projectors had to get aligned to not take up the second day tech time. There's not much that could have been done. When you are managing things, you sometimes have to work extra to get the project done. All good managers will work until the job is done. And to balance my work life schedule, I will be taking this Friday off to make up for all the extra hours.

What I Learned at the Summit – Part 1

This weekend was the 3rd Annual GLBT Economic Summit in Washington, DC. This was my second year in attendance and I learned so much again I thought I would share the big points in a couple of blog posts. The Summit is put on by the Office of GLBT Affairs, the Office of the Deputy Mayor of Planning and Economic Development for Washington DC, the Washington Economic Partnership and PEN- Metro DC’s LGBT Chamber of Commerce. As you can see, this Summit was no joke.

One of the Keynote Speakers was Harriet Tregoning the Director of the Office of Planning. Right away I sat there and thought, I will probably learn some business stuff but tying this into theatre is going to be tough. Then she delivered her keynote and she spoke about how DC should and can grow highlighting three ways to do so, Green Jobs, Retail and the Arts. Yes, the Arts took on a pretty big role in her speech. In fact she mentioned my company by name twice and she didn’t just talk about the big theatres but addressed smaller ones like the Fringe Festival and the Atlas Theatre.

She highlighted that in DC there are over 75,000 “creative” jobs. Which are everything from museums to media to theatre. She also said that of those jobs about 5,200 were in the performing arts. Most of the jobs were in media and communications in DC. In fact almost half of the creative jobs were in media.

Tregoning spoke about how we need the arts everywhere and how important they were to a thriving community. She said that the arts brought business to areas and helped with restaurants and retail. She encouraged us to think of creative ways to use empty space in the city and talked about having a rehearsal in a store front or even someone painting portraits and how that was more interesting than just an abandoned store front.

Why was I so excited about her speech? Because this room was full of business men and women, most of whom had nothing to do with the arts. Yet here stood someone from the planning office taking one third of her speech to discuss how the arts impact and should be thought of when planning the city.

Bonus – Tree Tweeting – She also was asked about trees in the city and she mentioned that you are responsible for watering any trees in front of your house even if it is not directly on your property. She went on to say that they are working on having your trees tweet you. This way you are reminded if the tree has not gotten rain in a while that you should water it. I just thought that was neat and had to share. More from the summit tomorrow.

Results

I have talked about building your brand a lot and not enough about results. If you are going to make it in this business you have to have results. You have to work hard and do it well. You can have all the Facebook friends in the world, but if you are not good at what you do, it won’t matter.

You need to always be improving in your job and pushing for more and better results. That is what will get you truly noticed. Yes, you want to have a network to reach out to, but then you want key people in that network to be your champions. You want to be able to sell yourself, but how much better is it when people do that for you?

I am running into some huge challenges in my position. I have goals that are unreachable and not enough to split my focus as is required. I am currently looking at my time very carefully and making sure I am putting the time to best possible use and looking at my resources to see where I can pass some things off. I also am looking at my goals and trying to come up with out of the box ideas to help get me closer to the goals. It is kind of a running joke that my co-worker Gen and I are always think way out of the box. I have to say that some of those “way out of the box” ideas have really helped.

I am happy to be known as an out of the box thinker. (Don’t forget the monkeys.) I will keep pushing to build my network and expand this blog, but I know my real focus is results. That is what will make you stand out above the rest. Having a great network, personal brand, and, most importantly, getting results.