Setting the 2nd Stage: An Interview With Jeffrey Lo

Since the 2nd Stages series is designed a an opportunity for Bay Area artists to explore personal projects and grow as theatre producers, we will be asking each producer to answer a couple of questions about their production and their growth. To kick it off, here's what producer/director Jeffrey Lo had to say about his 2nd Stages project, Some Girl(s) by Neil LaBute.

1. With 2nd Stages you had the opportunity to select any work you wanted. What drew you to Some Girl(s)? 

Some Girl(s) is a play I've wanted to direct for years. Since college, really. I'm also a playwright and being discovering this play really opened my eyes to ways that contemporary stories and relationships can be told on stage. I was really drawn to how minimal and real the dialogue felt. It felt like I was spying on four pairs of exes trying to navigate what their lives have become since they were together and that really excited me.

2. How did you first encounter Some Girl(s)? 

 I can't remember why I decided to pick Some Girl(s) up but I do know that I got it at the Langson Library back at UC Irvine. That library has a wonderful collection of plays and before Winter break I went over to pick up every play I could find by Neil LaBute, Tracy Letts and Stephen Adly Gurguis. At the time I wasn't familiar with any of them but a professor of mine who read my writing recommended I take a look at those three and see how it would effect my writing. The first thing I read that winter was Some GIrl(s). I honestly think it was because I liked the cover of the book. Lucky for me a great script was sitting between the covers.

3. They say that half of being a good director is good casting. Have you found this to be true with Some Girl(s)? 

Absolutely. My day job is as the casting assistant at TheatreWorks so I have a deep knowledge of how important casting a show is. If you cast the show wrong, there is only so much a director can do. Theatre is a collaborative form of storytelling and, in the end, you need the right actors to carry out your vision. We have an absolutely phenomenal cast for Some Girl(s). Each of our women capture these unique characters in really nuanced and heartbreaking ways and Evan is doing a great job playing our Everyman. By nature of the play, Guy is going to be a challenging role. He is meeting up with four women who - he acknowledges - he's hurt in some way. You have to work really hard to keep him as charming as possible. We have to know why these women fell so hard for him or else we lose the audience right away.

4. With this off your bucket list, are there other shows that you’d love to direct in the future? 

My two favorite plays are Julia Cho's The Language Archive and Chekhov's Uncle Vanya. I've worked on The Language Archive in different roles a number of times and will be the dramaturg for the City Lights production coming in May but I can't wait to get my directorial hands on that beautiful poem of a play. I think I'm at least a decade away from being ready to touch Uncle Vanya but hopefully there's a point in my career where I can do that play and do it right. The lonely, frustrated and good hearted Vanya is a character that has always stuck with me and one of these days I'll get the opportunity to explore him.

5. What advice would you give aspiring young playwrights or directors? 

Keep learning. It's easy, as a director or a writer, to feel like you have to know everything but don't fall into that trap. So much goes into putting on a production that no one will ever see but taking on all of these duties will help you realize how special and humbling our work is. There is something to learn from every person and every opportunity coming your way. Make sure you are open and ready to catch them as they come.

The Music of Marvin's Room

One thing Laura Jane Bailey (the director) and Jeffrey Lo (the sound designer) talked a lot about when coming up with the concepts for Marvin's Room was the music to play before, during, and after the show. With the wall rotations we knew early on that we'd need to fill some time in blue light with some music, and that the music in these scene transitions would really be instrumental to setting the tone of the show. Laura Jane had some requests and generally thought that the show should be influenced by the music of the 1960/1970s - upbeat but with some occasionally darker lyrics. She shouted out artists like The Beatles, Dusty Springfield, Sonny and Cher, and the like as examples. Jeffrey did an amazing job of coming up with some songs that really captured the flavor of the show. We'll highlight a few songs and artists over the next few weeks - some that we used in discussion to really shape the show.

First off is a song by singer Diane Birch called "Rise Up" that we all really dig. This girl can SING.

One thing I love about doing a show with Jeffrey is that I always learn about some female vocalist that I'd never heard of - for Private Eyes last year it was Adele - right before she blew up with her monster hit "Rolling in the Deep." So far everything I've heard from Ms. Birch makes me want to go run and buy her stuff. I did enjoy a comment on iTunes though as I was researching her: "Diane Birch is to Carol King as Oasis is to the Beatles." This is hilarious as we referenced both Oasis and the Beatles for this show, but more on that later. Enjoy the bluesy voice of Ms. Birch!

See you at the theatre!

--Kim

Playwright to Playwright: Our Interview With Colette Freedman

Our Artist in Residence, Jeffrey Lo, recently had the chance to talk to playwright/author/all around fascinating person Colette Freedman, about her play, Sister Cities, how she got into writing, and what it means to be a woman writer in America.

Jeffrey: Hi Colette. Can you tell us briefly about your writing background? At what age do you think the writing seeds were planted into your brain and when do you realize you wanted to start taking it seriously?

Colette: The first play I ever wrote was in fifth grade when I penned my eleven year old masterpiece, An Archie Bunker Thanksgiving. Okay, I realize that totally dates me, but it was a fun play with every kid in the class playing a 70's sitcom character. And it was a big class, so one of the families coming to dinner at the Bunker's ended up being the entire clan from Eight is Enough. I was in a Jewish youth group and used to write plays for them as well. But I had always leaned more towards acting than writing. I moved to Los Angeles to pursue my acting dream and, along the way, discovered a lack of great women's parts in the theatre. After Chekhov and Shakespeare and Ibsen – yes I’m a classics snob - I felt left out. I didn't have a voice as an actress... so I started to write my own plays. At first I did them under a pseudonym (Naomi Lefkowitz for those who are interested), but as soon as people started to want to produce them, I came forward. And I haven't turned back. I still love acting and find that sometimes I'm better discovering characters as a writer from the inside out, I originated Austin in Sister Cities, but now I've turned to novels and screenplays so I'm constantly learning and expanding as well.

Jeffrey: That's great! Why did you originally write under a pseudonym and how was it when theaters began contacting you with interest in producing your work?

Colette: I wrote under a pseudonym because I was working with a great theatre company called Circus Theatricals and I wanted my work judged fairly. We had a ten minute play festival and I was on the reading committee. So many of the plays were crap that I decided to write one myself. It was called First to the Egg and was about a nerdy sperm convincing a self-important egg that he was 'the one'. Everyone loved it and it was my first professionally produced play. After that, the company's artistic director, Jack Stehlin, was very generous producing my work and he produced several of my shows. We're still in touch and he actually just commissioned me to do a modern film adaptation of Uncle Vanya for him so it all comes around - Chekhov to Chekhov!

Jeffrey: So at what point did you start writing full lengths and how did Sister Cities come about?

Colette: I wrote Sister Cities in 2005 because my best friend, Jill Gascoine, who was a famous actress in England, told me that she was retiring from acting and would not act again unless she played a corpse. So I started with the idea that I needed to write a play about a corpse which made me give the corpse a back story and a family. I had an aunt with ALS (more commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease) and always thought it would be one of the most tragic ways to die.

Also, I love writing female characters, so I gave her four very different daughters who don't like each other very much; yet, must come together to fulfill their mother's wishes.

Before Sister Cities I wrote two full length plays which were produced: Iphigenia at Aulis, which was a modern day adaptation and Deconstructing the Torah.

Jeffrey: When you were acting in the first production of Sister Cities, what are some things that you discovered during the process?

Colette: How much fun it was! As a writer, you observe everything. You watch and you listen; yet, as an actress smack dab in the middle of it, I got to use my other senses too: taste, touch, smell. It informed the character of Austin and, in turn, informed the play.

Jeffrey: Looking through the Sister Cities website, performing the play at the 2008 Edinburgh Fringe Festival seemed like a real blast. How did the idea to bring it to Edinburgh come about and how was the overall experience?

Colette: The Edinburgh Festival was, by far, one of the best experiences of my life. I strongly recommend it to any writer, actor, direct, producer - anyone involved in the theatre. I had acted in a few plays with Sidewalk Studio Theatre and the guys who ran it, Kurt and Marc, absolutely loved Sister Cities and wanted to take the play there. So, the entire original cast... plus the NYC Dallas went and it was amazing. I cut the play down to an hour. All of the plays had a 10 minute load in, 55 minute run and 10 minute load out, talk about guerilla theatre!

We performed for 30 days straight from 6:45 to 7:45. We performed at The Gilded Balloon, which was mostly a comedy house; however, we got great audiences for being a play. Five star reviews. The rest of the time we saw loads of theatre, met some amazing people, took in the sites and took full advantage of the bar/social scene. It was a different world there and I want to go back.

Jeffrey: Earlier this season, Dragon produced Theresa Rebeck's Bad Dates. At around the same time - her great keynote speech regarding women playwrights was getting a lot of attention. Can you tell us a little bit about your early experiences about being a female playwright and if you feel your gender is still making a difference when trying to get your work produced today?

Colette: I loved Rebeck's speech regarding women playwrights; however, I'm a big fan of producing the best theatre out there, no matter which gender writes it. I make it a point to try to nurture young women playwrights because, frankly, I think the problem is that there are not enough of them. There's always been a huge gender disparity in Hollywood: women screenwriters, TV directors, executives, etc. So the fact that there are so few produced women playwrights doesn't surprise me, and it doesn't depress me; rather, it inspires me to work harder and try to make my plays as good as possible so that it is impossible NOT to produce them.

If you want to hear more about her upcoming projects, her work on Sister Cities, or more about her amazing Archie Bunker Thanksgiving play, Ms. Freedman will actually be attending opening night of our production of Sister Cities. A ticket to the opening night show and gala will also allow you to meet the playwright and you can ask her about her Jackie Collins play and upcoming book! See you at the show!

Large Versus Small Theatre

It's been interesting on the internet this week because there's been some discussion of large versus small theatre. The first piece that I ran across was entitled "Is intimate theatre 'decadent'?" From the article:

One thing that really intrigued me, though, was Greig's contention that intimate theatre – the kind of one-on-one, small-scale experiences that have been such a feature of recent Edinburghs, and indeed the subject of two festivals at London's BAC – is "decadent" in these austere times. It is, he argued, a resource-heavy theatre that makes its experiences available to the few rather than the many. Whereas "there is an app," he said, "that you can open in any city in Europe, western Asia, Australasia and North and South America. It is called a pros-arch theatre. Like a lot of people in theatre, I used to see the traditional proscenium arch stage as elitist. Now I regard it as rather democratic. A lot of people can see it. It's much more available than having to go to a special place on your own, wearing headphones."

In contrast, Michael Kaiser, president of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, writes this on the Huffington Post:

Smaller arts organizations are typically those which serve unique segments of our communities (the elderly, the disabled, communities of color, rural communities, etc.). Many of our nation's greatest artists were first exposed to the arts through these more specialized arts organizations.

Smaller organizations are also more likely to champion new adventuresome work. While larger organizations are challenged to risk large sums on a ground-breaking project, smaller organizations, with smaller project budgets, are more often the crucibles for new exciting artists and art forms.

Smaller organizations also provide a classroom for young artists who learn their craft by experimenting with less expensive and less visible projects. We would not have a large cadre of experienced artists without the smaller organizations that gave them their training and first opportunities to create work.

It would be disastrous for the future of the arts if large arts organizations -- with larger staffs and greater brand recognition -- sucked all the resources and left smaller organizations without funding.

We need to train arts managers of small organizations to market their offerings, to identify potential donors, and to develop relationships so they can compete with their larger counterparts for funding. And we need our professional donors, foundations and major individual philanthropists, to recognize the vital role played by smaller organizations.

Fascinating. Obviously, working at Dragon, I fall on the side of Kaiser. I think the most important thing he mentioned was the opportunity for young artists to develop - this is the heart of Dragon's mission statement, and it's something we take seriously. It's hard enough to be a "working artist" in this world. We try to use our limited resources to mentor younger or, in my case, maybe not young but career-transitioning, artists and arts managers so they have a solid foundation and work ethic, to give them some exposure, and to help them bolster their resumes however they need to.

To support this part of our mission, next year we're going to give a new works staged reading festival a shot. There are a ton of talented writers in the Bay Area and young playwrights need to be able to develop too. Jeffrey Lo is spearheading the effort and is getting support for other Dragon staffers. We're currently accepting scripts from writers located in the Bay Area. We have the submission requirements on our website. As this new series progresses, we'll be taking a look into the whole process, from start to finish, so check back on this site for future updates!

Artist in Residence: Jeffrey Lo

At Dragon, part of our mission is to foster the growth of young, up and coming artists, be they directors, actors, or designers. To support this mission, we sometimes have an "artist in residence." Currently, Jeffrey Lo is serving as the Dragon Artist in Residence. Since he's involved with Streetcar we thought we'd sit down and talk to him about life at Dragon. Here's what he had to say.

Q: So Jeffrey, what does it really mean to be the "artist in residence" at Dragon Productions Theatre?

A: Defining my role as Dragon's Artist in Residence can be a little difficult to do because it involves so much and evolves every day. At it's core, my role is to support any and every Dragon production utilizing my artistic skill set. I am a playwright, director and sound designer so if you track my work at Dragon you'll see that I've shifted from being an assistant director for Turn of the Screw and Streetcar, to sound designing Private Eyes, to finally producing the upcoming New Works Factory in April 2012. The great thing about being the Artist in Residence at Dragon is that while I'm able to use my different skills to support Dragon - I am able to call Dragon an artistic home where I am able to learn, experiment and grow.

Q:Well that leads us to another question - you're Assistant Directing for our current production, A Streetcar Named Desire. What exactly does the assistant director do?

A: The assistant director's role really depends on the director and the show. For Streetcar, Jeanie was the first director who actually gave me a couple of scenes to direct myself. Those two scenes being the scene with Blanche and the newspaper boy and the following scene with Blanche and Mitch right after the date. Jeanie and I met before the days we would block those scenes and she gave me an idea of what her vision for those scenes were and the direction we wanted them to go in. Once the actors came in, Jeanie was wonderful about allowing me to get my feet wet and direct those scenes myself while pulling me aside and giving me pointers and suggestions along the way. It was a really great experience for me.

Q: That's awesome! Do you find one aspect of the theatre more challenging or rewarding that the others? Is there one thing you tend to love the most, or that you aspire to focus on in the future?

A: It'd be hard for me to just pick one because there are different things I love about each area of theater that I work on. I love to work sound because I'm constantly listening to music and get so inspired by how different songs, lyrics or even instruments can affect the way I'm feeling. I have a lot of fun trying to support what the directors and actors are doing on stage and really working the audience through sound. I love directing because I really love the sense of community I work to build within a cast. I really enjoy comparing the group of people I have on the first day of rehearsal and the mini family that I have by closing night. But if someone were to put a gun to my head and told me to pick just one thing to do in theater I wouldn't hesitate to pick playwriting. A part of that answer is cheating because I can heavily influence the sound and direction when writing a script but there's something special about getting down to the core of a show and basically mapping out its blueprint - which is really what a script is.

Q: What other projects have you got coming up?

A: The big thing I'm working on right now is a play that I wrote and directed called

Barcelona Love Song. This project is really special to me because I'm getting another chance to work with Skyler Garcia and Irene Van who I love to death and I worked with 5 years ago on a show called All I Have which is the show where I feel I made my first true artistic breakthrough. The three of us are working on the Barcelona Love Song with a group of 8 students - mostly high schoolers - and I'm just really enjoying the opportunity to reach back to an energetic and youthful period in my career and try and help these students have that same breakthrough I had way back when. For more info on the show, you can check it out at www.06ensemble.blogspot.com.

Anyone else have questions for Jeffrey? Feel free to shout them out in the comments!