Meghan McCauley connected me to Dana & Patrick after we swapped interviews for our Fringe shows. You can read Meghan’s profile of my play here as well as my conversation with her on Spring Awakening here. Meghan produced the Fringe show Dana and Patrick are directing, and I have to say, it sounds very exciting! Read more about Spring here (and go to see it).
CMJ: Please give a short description of SA from a Director’s Perspective. What were the images or themes that drove your process?
DM: Spring Awakening is a play about the basic human struggle between what we think we are “supposed” to do and what we think we “want” to do. This decision is especially difficult in the terrifying and exciting time between childhood and adulthood. These kids who are in between have an extraordinarily intense hunger for exploring everything that the world has to offer and the parents are constantly trying to shelter, deflect, and postpone that exploration. Over the course of the process we tried to give equal weight and energy to both the excitement and freedom of the exploration itself, and the consequences of exploring without being equipt with the maturity/information to process what you find. Everything is high stakes and everything has a duality to it.
PR: Spring Awakening is literally a play about everything human. God, love, sex, morals, friendship, education, betrayal, lies, hypocrisy, shame, secrets. And I guess you could probably say that about any play, but this play wrestles with all of those issues one by one, and really affects how you move ahead with directing or acting in it. It is filled with philosophy and poetry about life and death, God and the devil, and yet also manages to make the characters extremely human, believable, and funny! That is it’s greatest achievement and biggest challenge.
CMJ: How did you prepare for a piece with masks, etc. versus other pieces, and how do you prepare for co-directing?
DM: All of the adult characters in the play are in mask. We wanted to distinguish them from the teenagers and show that they had decided on the identity that they were going to portray to the world, while still making them honest and three-dimensional people. It was hard to walk that line between classic mask work that is based in caricature/extremes, and portraying the adult characters as the full humans they are. To achieve this, we prepared for the masked characters much in the same way as we did the regular characters (focusing on circumstances, high stakes objectives, and responding honestly to each other) but with added work on creating a heightened physicality for them so as to match their heightened face. We got a lot of help and advice from our friend Lori Petermann (our amazing mask designer/constructer and a brilliant director in her own right). It has been really exciting to watch the actors grow into their masks and make them come alive.
Dana Murphy
Preparation for co-directing= Communication. End of story. It’s essential. Our biggest concern was confusing the actors by always giving two separate perspectives on things, so we just talked extensively about every scene before we rehearsed it so that we could be one unified voice going in to rehearsals. Also, always being honest with each other about how we are feeling about the show, how we feel about certain choices, and where we’re at as people. It’s the only way that we could get through this and not want to kill each other at the end of it. Hahaha. It’s a challenge, but an exciting one, because we have two brains full of ideas instead of one! And really we had like… ten brains if you count all of the other genius artists involved in this show, sheesh.
PR: Working with masks is a fun and difficult challenge. First of all, our friend and colleague Lori Petermann agreed to make original masks for the show, which look fantastic! One important element was that we didn’t want the masked characters (which include all the adults) to just be broad, cartoonish caricatures—since that would take the responsibility away from them as real people. We want them to appear as genuine and prismatic as the characters not in mask. The actors have to really push themselves to find the specificity in the body as well as in the text. The masks help in many ways but can also take away from the truth of the character. So our job is to really encourage specific choices that reflect the truthfulness and relationships of the characters in order to present the masks as real people.
Dana is great and has brilliant ideas. We are lucky and have complimentary strengths. We just had to make sure that we were more or less on the same page before each rehearsal, so as not to confuse the actors and to create a cohesive rehearsal process. Hopefully that can be seen in the final product as
Patrick Riley
well. What was also helpful was having an open forum basically for everyone to share his or her thoughts and ideas.
CMJ: What was the biggest challenge in directing this piece and how will you overcome it (if you think you will)?
DR: I think the biggest challenge in this production is that same duality that I was talking about before. We are constantly walking the line between the intensely dark subject matter, and the humor and hilarity of the scenes. Although it is always a hard thought to get out of the back of your mind, we tried to not worry about whether a moment should be “funny” or “sad”. Just playing the honesty of the situation. Add to that a fractured narrative, a ton of different characters and themes, not having a stage manager (till tech week), and it’s all pretty hard to keep straight in your head! Every moment is two, twenty, ten million things at one time. I think we will overcome it. Not in a way where we all feel totally sure and like the show is perfect, but in a way where we will be ok with the fact that it still confuses us. And we will be proud and feel great about the work that we did. I think it terrifies all of us. But I think that’s how it should be. We should never have it all figured out, because otherwise what would be the point of doing a play?
PR: One of the biggest challenges of Spring Awakening is the fractured narrative and the extensive amount of themes in the play. Like I said earlier, the play is about everything, so the tough part was picking out what we wanted to emphasize. We decided that a lot of the play was about choosing one’s identity as a survival mechanism. Placing the adult characters in mask, we are playing with the idea that they have chosen their identity and use that as a way to live, to rule, to hide, and to survive. The teenagers, on the other hand, haven’t chosen their mask yet and have so many options available to them as they grow up, which is the cause of chaos, pain, and confusion.
The play doesn’t really offer a protagonist and antagonist, or follow a single storyline. So we tried to really just focus on what these people want and how they survive in the world. In really going for what they want, it has been really interesting to see how they are all very similar and intertwine in the story. They are all really lost, masked or not. I suppose we’ll let the audience determine if we overcame our challenges. We established a measure of success when we started this process, which was to have fun working together and produce something we are proud of. In that case, mission accomplished!
CMJ: What is the biggest challenge to directors in Los Angeles? How have you found your way here and where do you hope to go?
DR: Having to have two other jobs besides this one to pay rent. No artist that I know in Los Angeles is making enough money to do art full-time. Wait, scratch that, they ARE doing art full-time, but then they are also waiting tables full-time and parking cars full-time and serving coffee full-time…. I have been doing children’s theatre for most of my life (first as a performer, then choreographer, then every other job, and now director) and that is where a lot of my heart still lies. In theatre education. And it is also where I make my money, which is a complete blessing (the creativity in these kids minds just BLOWS ME AWAY, it is the most inspiring thing in the world).
Despite the lack of funds, I am so grateful to be working with Patrick, and Meghan and all of the other Lonesome No More! Company members who have a real passion for making theatre happen. I think that that support and community is so super necessary in a place like LA. Not only within companies, but between companies as well.
I would say that where I want to go from here is…well… that’s why we have mission statements isn’t it? Here! — Lonesome No More! Mission: Create theatre with people we love. Dedicate ourselves to supporting the work of the arts community. Continually challenge ourselves to explore the human spirit. Learn and use as many different mediums as possible. Find joy, and encourage it.
PR: I would say the biggest challenge is the shear number of directors in LA. Like actors, it’s really amazing how many people here are in the ‘industry’ or want to be. I think as lovely as the film/television industry can be, the theatre is overshadowed. And it honestly is a matter of a little consciousness shifting. I know that sounds ridiculous, but seriously theatre directors and actors will continue to be under represented as long as theatre in general is under-funded and under-appreciated. In my opinion, it should be on par with any film or commercial or pilot. It is an amazing opportunity to refine your craft, but shouldn’t just be a thing that is done to find an agent or while you are waiting for the call. It is a legitimate industry and should be treated as such.
I think finding one’s own voice is very important. And I think an important step towards making the theatre and theatre artists sustainable is to unite all these small theatres and companies together to form something with strength. That is a big goal of Lonesome No More! for the future—to really try and work together with the artistic community.
It’s important to be pro-active and to make your own thing. I am continuing to find my way, and hope to be wherever makes me happy—surrounded by good friends making something we’re proud of!
DANA’S RESPONSE TO PATRICK’S ANSWERS:
See??? We communicate! Those are two sets of very similar answers haha. Although I am more long-winded, as usual. Hear, hear! To everything he said, especially about finding your own voice and the play being about EVERYTHING. Oy vey.
Also, Patrick is great and has brilliant ideas too.
PATRICK’S RESPONSE TO DANA’S ANSWERS:
I actually just pretended to be Dana and wrote two sets of different answers hahaha! Like I said, working with her has been easy because we are on the same page most of the time.
