Lab - Week 3 Recap

And so it ends. I'm glad I took notes and pictures throughout, because right now it's a blur. Another reason could be that the large majority of us were out until 4am partying. Either way, it was a whirlwind and I certainly took the chance to get swept up in it.

Week Three began with a presentation and/or discussion from our playwriting groups. It was great to see and hear about so many different styles and techniques. Kudos to Jason Grote for organizing such a diverse group of New Dramatists playwrights. In the afternoon on Tuesday, Andre Bishop, the Artistic Director of Lincoln Center, talked to us about himself. Later, Ben Cameron, the former Executive Director of TCG, talked with us about ourselves. That night, we had a 'Directors Clambake' which was basically speed dating. We each had two minutes with each director to sell yourself. Luckily I felt that I knew most of the directors by then, and it wasn't impersonal or false. It was good practice to promote the company and it never felt like a sales pitch. It was just shooting the shit about what we do.

On Wednesday, Anne Cattaneo and Anita Ross talked about The Basics of How American Theater Works. This was primarily for the international directors who were still struggling to understand why the hell we do it this way (Ultimately, it was decided that we all need to move to the Netherlands.) And then Ira Weitzman, Associate Producer of Musical Theater, talk about himself without ever really telling us what he really thought. Then came our tour of the theatres. After lunch, Carolyn Cantor, director of Essential Self-Defense and The Thugs, came to talk to us about working on a piece that only a handful had seen with a character who talks in monotone. Carolyn was super cool, but I wish we all had a chance to see the play or had talked about something else with her. Then began our 'Day of Emotion' (though really it was two evenings and an afternoon). Divided into group based on where we placed ourselves on a line of emotion, we worked again on the John Guare play, Woman at the Threshold, Beckoning, and were to present our emotional interpretation. (Our group was the Moderate Emotion group, for whatever that explains). We rehearsed, which was mostly talking, again the next afternoon and presented our piece Thursday evening. No group did a straight on literal interpretation of the play, and frankly, I think made the play better.

Thursday morning was a discussion amongst us about director training and opportunities. Friday morning was a talked with Daniel Swee, the Casting Director for Lincoln Center, followed by another discussion amongst us about finding funding. Friday afternoon was a Viewpoints workshop (both Overlie and Bogart) led by Suzana Berger and Gwen Reitz. Saturday morning was another discussion about creating a theatre company. Then at 2pm, we had a final round room discussion about the future of the Directors Lab with Anne. At 4pm, the pizzas arrived (as well as the wine and beer) and the celebrating continued for another twelve hours.