New Play Blog

Meet the Artists: Director Moisés Kaufman

2014-01-16T10:30:00-05:00

by Linda Lombardi, Literary Manager

Moisés Kaufman returns to Arena Stage where he previously directed his plays 33 Variations and The Laramie Project Cycle. Moisés is a Tony- and Emmy-nominated director and award-winning playwright. He most recently directed the Broadway revival of The Heiress with Jessica Chastain and wrote and directed 33 Variations on Broadway, starring Jane Fonda, which received five Tony nominations. Moisés also directed Rajiv Joseph's Pulitzer Prize finalist Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo with Robin Williams on Broadway in spring 2011. He is the Artistic Director of Tectonic Theater Project, creator of Moment Work (Tectonic's method for creating theater) and a Guggenheim Fellow in Playwriting. You can read his full bio here.

What attracted you to The Tallest Tree in the Forest?
I had seen Daniel perform and I was a big fan. He's a virtuosic performer, a brilliant mind and he's an opera singer—he's a triple threat.

I was also very interested in the script. I am fascinated with life and history as a source material. I find myself falling in love with how real-life narratives can be made into an artistic statement. Paul Robeson's story is one of those stories in America that has never been truly told. He was an all-American football star, a concert singer, spoke 15 languages, and was a brilliant scholar, a brilliant thinker and a great actor. There is a magnitude to this man. We don't see people like this. This man's project is so broad. It was about art and politics and liberation. It was about the revival of the Negro spiritual as a valid form of singing; about race and about class.

This is the story of an artist who became an activist and who stopped being an artist in order to become an activist. In the 1930s and 1940s, he was the most famous black man in the world. When he spoke, both white people and black people listened. When he became famous he realized that he had a responsibility to speak for civil rights and when he began to do that he stopped being just an artist and became an artist-activist. For someone with that amount of power and that amount of reach to have such daring ideas about race and about class—he needed to be silenced, and the House Un-American Activities Committee and McCarthy succeeded in doing that. This is a man who has been erased from American history. The challenge to tell his story on stage excited me.

How does Paul Robeson's story resonate today?
As artists we're always trying to have a dialogue with the society in which we work. Robeson felt that that wasn't enough. It wasn't enough for him to create beauty. He was also interested in how an artist could be a political speaker. This question of artist-activist is something that is still relevant. He spoke about class struggle and economic disparity, which is something that is very much in the public eye today. He foresaw a lot of the discourse on economic disparity that we're having now.

He made the connection that as long as each individual oppressed group only fights their oppression—if African Americans only fight for civil rights and gay people only fight for sexual orientation rights and women only fight for women's rights—we lack the power to effect profound economic change. But if we begin to think of economic disparity as a place where we can all come together, that becomes a very powerful front.

A great deal of public discourse is not about subtlety. It's about impact.

What do you think the role of an artist is as an activist – do you think it’s possible to be both?
It is still very much a taboo. One of the great perils of artistic discourse in America is that it's always ‘Arts and Entertainment.’ There is a way in which we expect our artists to entertain us and the moment they start speaking their mind on anything other than their artistic milieu, we get very upset with them. There's a very strong link between art and commerce in America. People are not able to separate your craft from your political views.

Art has the ability to bring about the highest form of discourse; to humanize us, to civilize us, and in that sense it has a higher realm than religion or politics. The stage is the best way to effect change and to effect enlightenment—which is what I think all works of art truly aspire to. I keep returning to the theater because I feel that my talents and my craft are best used here. I have incredible faith in the theater.

The construct of the artist in American society is us as entertainers and that's what was so difficult for Robeson. He was the most famous black man in the world and when you have that kind of power—if you have a bit of conscious—you know that you have to use some of that power to speak about the issues that are happening in your community.

An Artist Takes a Stand

2014-01-15T10:30:00-05:00

by Linda Lombardi, Literary Manager

In The Tallest Tree in the Forest, writer/performer Daniel Beaty performs a scene of Paul Robeson testifying before the House Un-American Activities Committee on June 12, 1956.

In the years following World War II, America experienced a growing anxiety over the rise of Communism in Eastern Europe and China, and its presence in America. On February 9, 1950, a young Senator from Wisconsin, Joseph McCarthy, made a shocking allegation in a speech in Wheeling, West Virginia. Waving a sheet of paper, McCarthy claimed he had the names of over 200 Communists working in the State Department. Of course, that number would fluctuate (sometimes 57, sometimes 81, sometimes as few as 10).

The “Red Scare” swept the country. Accusations were hurled. Careers ruined. Lives lost. No one was safe. Celebrities and everyday American citizens were subpoenaed to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee—a committee whose very name conjures ominous images of Big Brother. (Simultaneously, the Lavender Scare destroyed the lives of countless gay men and women.)

Throughout Robeson’s hearing, he asked if he could read a statement for the record. Each time he was denied. That same day it was released to the press. Below is an excerpt from that statement.

Statement of Paul Robeson to House of Representatives Committee on Un-American Activities
June 12, 1956

“It is a sad and bitter commentary on the state of civil liberties in America that the very forces of reaction, typified by Representative Francis Walter and his Senate counterparts, who have denied me access to the lecture podium, the concert hall, the opera house, and the dramatic stage, now hale me before a committee of inquisition in order to hear what I have to say. It is obvious that those who are trying to gag me here and abroad will scarcely grant me the freedom to express myself fully in a hearing controlled by them.

It would be more fitting for me to question Walter, Eastland and Dulles then for them to question me, for it is they who should be called to account for their conduct, not I. Why does Walter not investigate the truly “un-American” activities of Eastland and his gang, to whom the Constitution is a scrap of paper when invoked by the Negro people and to whom defiance of the Supreme Court is a racial duty? And how can Eastland pretend concern over the internal security of our country while he supports the most brutal assaults on fifteen million Americans by the white citizens councils and the Ku Klux Klan? When will Dulles explain his reckless irresponsible “brink of war” policy by which the world might have been destroyed.

And specifically, why is Dulles afraid to let me have a passport, to let me travel abroad to sing, to act, to speak my mind? This question has been partially answered by State Department lawyers who have asserted in court that the State Department claims the right to deny me a passport because of what they called my “recognized status as a spokesman for large sections of Negro Americans” and because I have “been for years extremely active in behalf of independence of colonial peoples of Africa.” The State Department has also based its denial of a passport to me on the fact that I sent a message of greeting to the Bandung Conference, convened by Nehru, Sukarno and other great leaders of the colored peoples of the world. Principally, however, Dulles objects to speeches I have made abroad against the oppression suffered by my people in the United States.

I am proud that those statements can be made about me. It is my firm intention to continue to speak out against injustices to the Negro people, and I shall continue to do all within my power in behalf of independence of colonial peoples of Africa. It is for Dulles to explain why a Negro who opposes colonialism and supports the aspirations of Negro Americans should for those reasons be denied a passport.

My fight for a passport is a struggle for freedom—freedom to travel, freedom to earn a livelihood, freedom to speak, freedom to express myself artistically and culturally. I have been denied these freedoms because Dulles, Eastland, Walter, and their ilk oppose my views on colonial liberation, my resistance to oppression of Negro Americans, and my burning desire for peace with all nations. But these are views which I shall proclaim whenever given the opportunity, whether before this committee or any other body.

President [Dwight D.] Eisenhower has strongly urged the desirability of international cultural exchanges. I agree with him. The American people would welcome artistic performances by the great singers, actors, ballet troupes, opera companies, symphony orchestras and virtuosos of South America, Europe, Africa, and Asia, including the folk and classic art of African peoples, the ancient culture of China, as well as the artistic works of the western world. I hope the day will come soon when Walter will consent to lowering the cruel bars which deny the American people the right to witness performances of many great foreign artists. It is certainly high time for him to drop the ridiculous “Keystone Kop” antics of fingerprinting distinguished visitors.

I find no such restrictions placed upon me abroad as Walter has had placed upon foreign artists whose performances the American people wish to see and hear. I have been invited to perform all over the world, and only the arbitrary denial of a passport has prevented realization of this particular aspect of the cultural exchange which the President favors.”

His statement concludes:

“My travels abroad to sing and act and speak cannot possibly harm the American people. In the past I have won friends for the real America among the millions before whom I have performed,—not for Walter, not for Dulles, not for Eastland, not for the racists who disgrace our country’s name,—but friends for the American Negro, our workers, our farmers, our artists.

By continuing the struggle at home and abroad for peace and friendship with all of the world’s people, for an end to colonialism, for full citizenship for Negro Americans, for a world in which art and culture may abound, I intend to continue to win friends for the best in American life.”

(Source: Paul and Eslanda Robeson Collection, Manuscript Division, Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, Howard University.)

Meet the Artists: Writer/Performer Daniel Beaty

2013-12-24T10:30:00-05:00

by Linda Lombardi, Literary Manager and Maria Edmundson, Artistic Development Fellow

Award-winning writer, actor, singer and composer Daniel Beaty returns to our stage this January. Previously at Arena Stage, Daniel performed his solo-play EMERGENCY (formerly Emergence-SEE!) and premiered his ensemble piece, Resurrection. Daniel has performed and been produced across the country, including a very successful Off-Broadway run. A member of New Dramatists and an adjunct professor at Columbia University, Daniel has authored two new books — Knock Knock, a children’s book, and Transforming Pain to Power. I recently spoke with Daniel about his production, The Tallest Tree in the Forest, based on the life of Paul Robeson and directed by Moisés Kaufman. Below is an excerpt of our conversation.

What is The Tallest Tree in the Forest about?
The play is about the journey of the artist-activist. First, Paul Robeson’s path to discover his artist self, then his dance between the artist-activist self, and finally his full movement into his activist personality, with his art only being in service of his activist agendas. That’s the public side of Robeson. The personal side is made up of these two core influences early in his life — his father, who was a scholar, an escaped slave who taught himself to read and graduated from Lincoln University, and his brother who was about force and eventually died in the streets. This duality exists inside Robeson: “Will I use my intellect? Will I use my passion and my force?”

What attracted you to Paul Robeson?
I first learned about him when I was a student of classical voice in college. I have a love for the spirituals and I remember coming across a CD of his singing spirituals, world music and folk songs. I was astonished by how beautiful his voice was and then I discovered how many other things he did beyond singing.

He was an all-star athlete; Valedictorian from Rutgers University; Columbia University lawyer; star of stage and screen; concert-singer performing in front of 20,000-30,000 people at a time; an activist for black people in America, but also for Welsh miners, the African Colonial Freedom movement and union workers all over the country. He was a master of many, many different forms.

In an interview you gave in American Theatre Magazine you said, “I can only create a historical story if I feel it has immediate resonance today; the activist part of me finds it necessary.” How does Paul Robeson’s story resonate today?
One of my places of passion is the state of black men and boys in this country and the urgent issues around that. Part of the challenge is that there are lies that have been told — from media, from history, even generational trauma about who we are and who we can be. A figure like Robeson, who is a superhero in terms of his level of achievement and commitment and passion, immediately debunks that lie. Whether you agree or disagree with his politics, he made connections between race and class that are crucial for us at this point in our society. We’re so polarized around so many different issues, but his core message is that all human beings, regardless of race or class, should be able to have opportunity and that we’re responsible to each other. That’s an urgent message for us right now in the world.

What do you think the role of an artist as an activist — do you think it’s possible to be both?
It’s absolutely possible to be both. For Robeson, the urgency of the issues of his time caused him to feel like he could not be both. A turning point that we discuss in the play is the wildfire of lynchings that was going through the United States and his meeting with President Truman in 1946. The reality of the type of opportunities that were available to him as a black artist of that time, and feeling like the issues were so urgent and the system was so hypocritical, made him decide that is was not enough for him to continue. He says, “No more singing pretty songs.”

There are extremely urgent causes now, but there are so many different tools available to us in contemporary society — with social media and the internet — for varied voices to be heard in the world, that being an artist, having the platform of creativity, the platform of some degree of celebrity can cause you to have more influence.

I use a quote of Robeson’s at the top of my new book, Transforming Pain to Power: Unlock Your Unlimited Potential— “The artist must take sides. He must elect to fight for freedom or for slavery.”

I speak for not-for-profits and foundations at fund raisers or conferences, but a lot of the time I’m the only artist there, and I’m there to speak or perform. One of the reasons we’re in the state that we’re in is that artists are not at the table the way we need to be in terms of the larger conversation of social transformation. Artists know something about mind—heart—soul integration. We know something about narrative, we know something about human connectedness. That is our unique gift to the world. When artists are not at the policy making table, we’re missing core aspects of our best self at that table.

(Daniel Beaty as Paul Robeson in Tectonic Theater Project’s The Tallest Tree in the Forest. Photo by Don Ipock.)

Paul Robeson: Citizen of the World

2013-12-19T10:30:00-05:00

Interview by Laura Muir courtesy of Kansas City Repertory Theatre

As an artist, I come to sing, but as a citizen, I will always speak for peace, and no one can silence me in this." — Paul Robeson

In the mid-20th century, Paul Robeson was one of the best known African American artists in the world. Through his singing and acting talent, he became enormously popular and wealthy, and he was also highly regarded as an international champion for human rights.

Award-winning playwright and actor Daniel Beaty returns to Arena Stage as the legendary performer and social activist in the world premiere production of The Tallest Tree in the Forest. Moisés Kaufman, a Co-founder and Artistic Director of Tectonic Theater Project, returns having directed the hit production of 33 Variations and The Laramie Project Cycle. Biographies for both men can be found here.

Before arriving at Arena Stage, The Tallest Tree in the Forest performed at Kansas City Repertory and La Jolla Playhouse. While in rehearsal at Kansas City Rep, Beaty and Kaufman met with the Rep’s Communications Director Laura Muir to talk about The Tallest Tree in the Forest. The following is an excerpt of that conversation.

Daniel Beaty was a student of classical voice at Yale University when he first discovered African American singer, actor and social activist Paul Robeson. After hearing some of Robeson’s recordings and with a love of Negro spirituals, Beaty became curious about the man behind the amazing voice. “When I found out the breadth of all he had done I was both astonished and very upset that I had not learned about this giant figure,” Beaty says about the man who became one of his heroes.

“I feel like he epitomizes the artist activist. I wanted to find the right space and the right vehicle to bring him back to the social discourse, but to do it in a way that is as challenging and as complex and layered as he was. For me that means the complexity both of the man and the project in the time that he was living.”

How does one bring to the stage the life experiences of this giant of a man? It was challenging for Beaty, but not daunting. “So much of the power of drama is in the choices,” he explains. “And, much of the power of constructing a dramatic narrative that has force and urgency is trying to highlight those moments, sometimes very big and public and sometimes extremely personal, that were turning points in Robeson’s development.” Beaty continues, “The delicious aspect of the work is to continue to try out different moments to find which of them collectively tells the most dramatic story that is most compelling and also does justice to the character. And by justice, it’s not necessarily hero worship but a human being we can relate to who has contradictions and challenges and obstacles.” As the show’s only performer, Beaty portrays multiple characters with clarity and truth. Some of the characters are well-known figures from history and others are not, but Beaty is determined that each character have a clear perspective and emotional need.

Moisés Kaufman explains Beaty’s approach: “One of the things that amazes me about Daniel’s work on character is the specificity that he brings to that work. Each character has a history, each has an idiosyncrasy, and each has a philosophy by which she or he lives. Each character is not only an individual but is a member of the society in which he or she lives. Daniel does an incredible amount of homework for every character. What you see is literally the very, very, very small tip of a very, very, very large iceberg. Each character has a rich inner world, even if they only have two lines in the play.”

Kaufman is one of the nation’s most well-known author-directors, and his plays — most of which address historical subjects and social change — have been performed around the world. “Having worked with a lot of historical dramas and material, I am very attuned to historical characters and discovering what they want. Not to be over reductionistic, but the Oscar Wilde project [Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde] was about art, beauty and sexuality. In [The Laramie Project] you had a whole town going through this experience around the death of Matthew Shepard [who was murdered in an anti-gay hate crime in Wyoming in 1998]. And, there’s Beethoven in 33 Variations.

"I have had quite a bit of experience dealing with real life on stage, but I don’t think any of that prepared me for dealing with Robeson because his project was about race, and about class, and about colonialism in Africa, and about an individual’s ability to achieve their full potential. This is a man who was a citizen of the world before that term was popular. A man who got so much so right so early on. This is a man who lived in the world; who lived in the world as an artist; who lived in the world as an activist. The challenge of this play is that Robeson was a giant and was great at so many things — a great athlete, a great singer, an erudite scholar. What he wanted to achieve in his life was epic. What he was fighting for was epic.”

Kaufman and Beaty are perfectly attuned to portraying Robeson as both activist and artist. “Daniel and I think of ourselves as artists who create work that extends into social, political and human ideals of our time. Some people say our work is political. Yes. It is art that is political. Many times when you are in the middle of creating a work like that you do struggle. You care so much about politics and you are asked why don’t you quit being an artist and become an activist and fight for those things that you want? That conversation occurs all the time with artists like us who are in the trenches. What Robeson did that I find fascinating is that he made a choice. He stopped being an artist and he became an activist. Whether I agree with him or not I find my conversation with that decision incredibly rich for a dramatic event.”

Long an admirer of Kaufman’s work Beaty believed their collaboration – Beaty as creator and performer, Kaufman as director – could bring The Tallest Tree in the Forest to the stage. Figuring out how to pitch a play to one of theatre’s top directors was a challenge that was resolved with unexpected ease, as Beaty relates: “I have a residency with New Dramatist in New York City and I was telling Emily Morse, who is one of the creative directors there, that Moisés Kaufman would be my dream director for the project but I didn’t know how to reach him. So, Emily sent him the script. We did a 5-day workshop about 18 months ago and found a terrific connection. We’ve been on the journey ever since.”

“For me, what was exciting was when I got Daniel’s script I felt that this was something that not only I could get behind but that Tectonic could get behind,” said Kaufman. “I fell in love with the material and with the virtuosity of this performer.”

Before leaving the rehearsal hall for the evening, Beaty reflects on his relationship with Robeson, a man the young performer deeply admires and hopes to introduce to audiences who may not be familiar with the great accomplishments and bitter disappointments of his life. “I want audiences to have a profound understanding, if possible, about the time in which Robeson lived. The character of the person he was and the myriad of factors that contributed to the choices he made. The later years of his life are extremely painful to even contemplate but I’m not interested in writing tragedy so even in this play the difficulty that happens there is ultimately a discovery that has a glimmer of hope inside of it. But you know, whether or not people love Paul or hate him I think it would be hard for anyone to argue that the contributions he made should not be forgotten.”

Kaufman ended the conversation with an interesting piece of information: “The day that Robeson got the fatal stroke that killed him was the day that Daniel was born, December 28, 1975.” And so, the connection began.

(Photos courtesy Kansas City Rep: Paul Robeson, Jan 1, 1925, Edward Gooch, © Hulton Archive. Daniel Beaty, Nathan Yungerberg, www.njyphoto.com. Moisés Kaufman, Tectonic Theater Project.)

Video: Afghanistan After 2014 Panel Discussion

2013-11-23T14:37:34-05:00

by Linda Lombardi, Literary Manager

Last weekend, Arena Stage's Engage@ArenaStage discussion series hosted a free, public conversation after the matinee of Love in Afghanistan. Watch video excerpts below and stay tuned for future panel discussions throughout the season.

Love in Afghanistan raises many questions, including What’s going to happen after American military presence withdraws? What does the U.S. exit strategy mean for Afghanistan, and for the men and women who have worked closely with U.S. forces?

Panelists included Shinkai Karokhail, a renowned women’s rights activist and active member of the Afghan Parliament; Shafi Sharifi, an Afghan journalist; Janis Shinwary, who served as an interpreter for the U.S. military in Afghanistan; Hodei Sultan, Program Officer, Center for Conflict Management, United States Institute of Peace; and Matt Zeller, a Captain in the U.S. Army Reserve.

VIDEOS:

Matt Zeller's and Janis Shinwary's story of the two-year process of securing Janis's visa
Shinkai Karokhail on the advances made in women's rights
Hodei Sultan addresses the upcoming military withdrawal and elections
Shafi Sharifi discusses the recent growth and development in Afghanistan
Janis Shinwary and Matt Zeller on what you can do to get involved

Video: Women in Afghanistan Panel Discussion

2013-10-31T16:35:08-04:00

by Linda Lombardi, Literary Manager

This past Saturday, Arena Stage's Engage@ArenaStage discussion series hosted a free, public conversation after the matinee of Love in Afghanistan. Watch the full video below and join us for our next panel discussion on Afghanistan After 2014, on November 16.

What’s It Like to Be a Woman in Afghanistan?
From education to voting rights to physical safety, Afghanistan is one of the most challenging places in the world to be a woman right now. This post-show discussion explored women’s rights in Afghanistan—the peril, the progress and the potential.

Panelists included Anita McBride, former chief of staff to First Lady Laura Bush and a member of the U.S.-Afghan Women’s Council; Homira Nassery, Aschiana Foundation Board Member and an Advisory Committee member of Women for Afghan Women; and Faheema Eissar, volunteer administrator with the Initiative to Educate Afghan Women.

Special thanks to Jon Harvey for filming.

Love in Afghanistan Designer Roundtable

2013-10-24T11:26:37-04:00

by Linda Lombardi, Literary Manager

Ever wonder how the design of a show comes together? Beginning with individual conversations with the director, through regular production meetings, into tech week, previews and, finally, opening night, designers and production staff are constantly collaborating and fine-tuning to create a world that is simultaneously stunning, functional, subtle and lush.

Joseph Kamal, Melis Aker, Dawn Ursula and Khris Davis in Love in Afghanistan
(photo by Teresa Wood).

In our first Designer Roundtable, Set Designer Dan Conrad, Costume Designer Kathleen Geldard, Lighting Designer Mark Lanks and Original Music and Sound Designer Elisheba Ittoop talk about making theater magic for Love in Afghanistan.

KG: Early on, Lucie [Tiberghien] and I talked a lot about the fact that the actors were never leaving stage, and that it was a memory play going back and forth between the interrogations and the action of the story, so I was creating a look for each character that could withstand the entire act and the timeline of the play, as well as being visually interesting. We also talked about color really early on. What the rug was going to be and how that was a big canvas for what I should and should not do with color. I think the same is true for Mark and Elisheba.

EI: In terms of music and sound, Lucie and I were talking very early about what that was in this world and how music informs the characters. We have a character [Duke] who is a hip-hop artist, which is a genre of music that I know really well so, at our first meeting, we were talking about Duke and we were talking about what hip-hop artists he might be a mix of.

ML: Dan provided a really great base to be able to build different looks upon and create variety and texture of location. We had a clear understanding of how we were going to set in each different location and we carried that through to reality. I played with that a lot actually through the process.

KG: Going along with that there was a lot of talk about absolutely nothing to say “this is a hospital” or “this is the Air Force Base” so location-wise, it was a wide open canvas.

DC: This production’s a really good example of how very little you need to tell a story. The actors tell the story primarily and then all the elements are supporting elements to that. There is nothing more than four chairs onstage and I think Lucie does a brilliant job of staging it.

KG: Charles [Randolph-Wright] has written some really fun characters. If I only get two costumes each I think that those characters he’s written are so specific. There are definitely different directions you can go in but some of them are a little bit more specific than others. Like with Duke – what’s his music was my big question. What music is he putting out? Because that would help with the nuance of what exactly his hip-hop style is.

EI: That was such a big question for a while. What kind of hip-hop artist is he? There are so many forms of hip-hop. I feel like that was the overarching question for the first few meetings.

DC: And where did you land there?

EI: He’s kind of a mix of Kanye West and Drake and Kendrick Lamar. Lucie was reading about this group out of Los Angeles called Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All – or just Odd Future for short. They’re a conglomerate of hip-hop artists. They’re really weird and intellectual and their music is kind of what Charles writes about in the show. Duke at one point says his music is a bunch of stuff mashed up on each other and that’s Odd Future. It’s been interesting having that ongoing conversation with Lucie.

KG: Is that Frank Ocean too?

EI: Frank Ocean’s one of them, yeah. My favorite thing was having this ongoing dialogue with a director who very much wants to hear your opinion. I did a couple of days of table work with the cast and I never do that – my schedule just doesn’t allow that. I made sure I was there because I was really interested to see how these characters developed. So that’s been really exciting, being part of the new play process.

KG: Yeah I would second that, in terms of developing who these people are and working on a first production. Just seeing these people morph from the page into real, flawed characters and how they live and manipulate each other in space and just getting into the core of them through Charles and Lucie and, of course, four actors who have a lot of opinions about who they are. I love that.

ML: I love how we embraced the theater space.

DC: Mm-hmm.

ML: It really became such a part of the set itself and then to be able to play with lighting the walls and not lighting the walls, and the kind of undulating curvature that exists within the space. It was just beautiful.

DC: This is the simplest set I’ve done in probably 10 years. I haven’t done minimalism ever – I like scenery!

EI: This is one of my favorite sets of yours.

DC: Oh really?

EI: The rug is so warm and the metal is so cold and it informs me quite a bit as to what I’m going to make.

DC: The great thing about such a minimalist set is that everything is done by everybody in a fairly equal way. We all do a fair amount of storytelling, but it’s in a really nice, complimentary way. You can’t really tell where one idea ends and the next one begins.

Meet the Artists: Dramaturg Jocelyn Clarke

2013-10-16T12:05:36-04:00

by Linda Lombardi, Literary Manager

The American Voices New Play Institute dramaturg at Arena Stage, Jocelyn Clarke, is also the theater adviser to the Arts Council of Ireland and a member of the artistic team of Sundance Institute’s Theatre Lab. He has taught dramaturgy at the Kennedy Center, Trinity College Dublin and Columbia University. He is an associate artist with The Civilians and Theater Mitu in New York. He has written five adaptations for director Anne Bogart and her SITI Company — Bob, Alice’s Adventures Underground, Room, Score and Antigone and Trojan Women (After Euripides). Just before previews began, Jocelyn and I talked about new plays and the relationship between dramaturg and playwright. Below is an excerpt of our conversation.

What do you enjoy about working on a new play?
The development of a new play is a voyage of discovery, as much for the playwright as for anyone else involved along its journey from page to stage. I enjoy exploring the dramatic and theatrical worlds of a new play, the ones that exist on the page as well as the ones that have yet to emerge as it changes and grows from draft to draft. I ask the playwright lots of questions about the new play, encouraging him or her to dig as deep or as wide as it demands. The point of asking questions is not necessarily to find answers - although that will happen anyway - but to discover the full dramatic potential hiding inside a new play. As Arthur Miller once said, inside every great play lies a question...

How do you approach the relationship between playwright and dramaturg?
I think the relationship between a playwright and a dramaturg – and later with a director – either succeeds or fails according to the clarity and quality of communication between them. It seems like such an obvious thing to say but behind every play that hits a wall or every production that goes over a cliff, you find that there was fundamental breakdown in communication somewhere along the way between collaborators. In my initial meetings with a playwright, we spend most of our time talking about anything and everything (and not necessarily about the new play) as I learn how he or she talks about their work and how they see the world. I have to know that when a playwright uses the word “blue” that we are both talking about the same colour (as opposed to green or purple) and a similar hue and intensity.

Too often a playwright is forced to use the language of the dramaturg and of the literary manager, a strange mix of the academic and psychotherapeutic, which is not language in which he or she has conceived their new play and which they use to talk about it. I have been in several workshops and rehearsals where the dramaturg and the playwright - or the director and the playwright - are talking about two very different plays even though they are working on the same play. In any collaboration that involves a director, playwright and a dramaturg, my primary concern is to make sure that we are all speaking the same language, and that when we agree or disagree about something, we all understand what we are saying, and hopefully, talking about.

How would you describe the role of a dramaturg?
All plays need dramaturgy, but not necessarily dramaturgs. I don’t know what the role of a dramaturg is because I don’t think there is just one - a dramaturg at any one time is a collaborator, a critic, a cheerleader and a crank. I would even say that having a clearly defined role for the dramaturg can hinder his or her work with a playwright and director. What playwrights wants is somebody who gets them, gets their play, and can get into it with them, in whatever way is needed by the playwright or the play. I am currently working with Liz Lerman on her new project Healing Wars, and she had never worked with a “dramaturg” before. In our first meeting on Skype, she asked me what I do on a project. When I explained my approach, she told me that in her collaborations, nobody’s role is clearly defined and everybody is up in each other’s business. And she asked me would I mind doing that? I think that’s what I really like to do as a dramaturg…

(Photo: Jocelyn Clarke, Charles Randolph-Wright and Lucie Tiberghien. Photo by Ryan Maxwell.)

Meet the Artists: Director Lucie Tiberghien

2013-10-11T12:01:06-04:00

by Linda Lombardi, Literary Manager

Director Lucie Tiberghien makes her Arena Stage debut with Love in Afghanistan. No stranger to world premieres, other directorial credits include the world premieres of Stephen Belber's Don’t Go Gentle at MCC Theater at The Lucille Lortel Theatre, Katori Hall's Hoodoo Love at Cherry Lane Theater and Lee Blessing's Great Falls at Humana Festival. Her complete bio can be found on our Who's Who page. I sat down with Lucie at the beginning of tech week to catch up on her process directing new plays. Below is an excerpt of our conversation.

What attracted you to Love in Afghanistan?
Immediately, it was because it took place in Afghanistan. I’ve had a love affair with Afghanistan and its ongoing dramatic history and when I found out Arena was doing a play that took place in Afghanistan that caught my eye. Then I read just a few lines about the premise and I thought how fascinating to put a young African American hip hop artist and a young Afghan interpreter together and have them fall in love. That could only lead to incredible drama.

What do you like about working on new plays?
I like the collaborative aspect of new plays. Being part of the ongoing creative process - feeling part of something at its inception, and being able to bring in a director’s perspective to the play - that’s exciting. Personally, I’m attracted to plays that operate on a large canvas, that are far-reaching, and this is an incredibly ambitious play.

Charles and I work really well together. He’s incredibly open and I’m incredibly detail-oriented. My perspective is a little bit outside of a usual perspective, because I grew up in France, so the questions I ask are different. I think it’s true for our Dramaturg Jocelyn Clarke as well. The fact that he’s Irish, I’m French and Charles is American - it’s an interesting trio and our questions trigger something different in Charles in terms of how he thinks about his play. It’s not anything we’re doing; it’s just where we come from.

I know that in working with actors that’s also true. The different cultural backgrounds open up a conversation - and that’s what I really like about working with people from a different culture. Like Melis Aker, who plays Roya. Her approach and her questions are definitely influenced by the fact that she’s from Turkey. And the fact that I didn’t grow up in America allows me to have a different perspective on the racial question in this country. We have our own issues in France, definitely, but I’m not part of the conversation here in the same way - I’m a little bit outside of it.

How would you describe your approach as a director?
My approach has become more and more clear to me as the years go by, but it’s always about telling the story. All of the questions I’ve asked Charles in his process of writing the play were story-based: what’s happening? Why is this happening? How does that affect the next scene? I come from a dance and experimental theater background, but really the reason I do plays is that I think telling a story is vital. The story is what brings people into the play. If the story is clear then they’re willing to think about anything, they’re willing to be challenged on anything. They have to be able to go on the emotional journey of the story. It’s the same in classical plays - you look at Molière's plays - he’s a master storyteller. So whether it’s a classical play or a new play, all I want, from the beginning, is to tell the story. And then how to tell it, conceptually how to approach it, all those things, are guided by that story.

A Playwright's Passion

2013-10-10T13:43:04-04:00

by Charles Randolph-Wright, Resident Playwright

The idea for Love in Afghanistan began when I was here directing Ruined a few years ago. I read an article that I could not get out of my head about Afghan families and the practice of bacha posh (which translates as “dressed as a boy”). In many Middle Eastern cultures, specifically in Afghanistan, you must have a boy in your family to have honor. In the practice of bacha posh, one of the girls becomes a boy. At the age of five or six, her hair is cut, she takes a boy’s name, she dresses as a boy, lives as a boy, goes to school as a boy, and is able to do all the entitled things that boys can do in that world. However, when puberty hits, she goes back to being a girl again. This fascinated me. I walked into Molly Smith’s office and told her about this idea. I remember how huge her eyes immediately became and she said “you have to do this.”

I kept thinking, how do I tell that story? I don’t live there. I’ve not been there. I don’t understand that world. I needed to do it from the perspective of someone coming from the outside. I thought, who’s the most misogynistic person I can think of? Oh - hip-hop star! So, I imagined what would happen if Duke, a hip-hop artist, goes to Bagram Air Base to perform for the troops and he meets Roya, a stunning young Afghan woman who is an interpreter. He instantly falls for her, and as their journey progresses, they discover they both have two different identities.

Ultimately, what’s happened in the piece is all four characters actually have different identities, different masks that they use to function -- Roya, the young woman who still dresses as a man when she needs to leave the base where she works; the character of Duke grows up in an upper-class family and has a world view that’s different from most hip-hop artists, but he’s pretending that he has street cred; and Duke’s mother and Roya’s father both have public and private personas. All of those pieces, those secrets, those identities, come together and start blending together and, as I really broke this piece apart, I realized that’s what we all do to function. It’s not as extreme as a young girl becoming a boy but we all wear masks – personas – in life.

I had planned to go to Afghanistan this past summer, but obviously with everything that was happening and the strong suggestions not to travel there, I reluctantly thought, “All right Charles, you have to be smart and not go”, but then Afghanistan came to me. Many different Afghans have appeared in my life, and it’s almost been mystical how this has happened. Journalists, members of the U.S. military, students, translators, teachers, a carpet maker, and two young women who were bach posh have shared their stories with me, and have been invaluable in my process. Also, many people from the U.S. government who worked at or were involved with Bagram have opened their doors to help. Even the former head of Homeland Security gave me notes on my first draft. The passion from all of them has been inspiring.

I wanted Roya to be someone who wants to remain in Afghanistan in order to help her country and change her world – and I’ve met amazing young Afghan women who are doing exactly that. I’ve had the opportunity to talk with people who have lived the reality that’s in the script. These astonishing women I’ve met attend school here, but want to take what they learn and go back and help where they’re from as opposed to just leaving it behind. And the American perception is “Let me save you. Let me change you. Come here and become an American.” What we should be saying is, “Come here and let us have this dialogue, and then go home and help, because you helping your world, helps our world, helps everything.” That is something that has come out of this that’s really been amazing to me.

I’m so passionate about this process. I would not have been able to do this without my playwright residency – that I could explore the play the way I’ve been able to is the greatest gift an artist can have. I look back at the eight shows I’ve done here at Arena Stage - the kind of work I’ve been able to do – it is rare for an artist, especially an artist of color, to have this kind of opportunity. And I’ve wanted to work in the Cradle ever since it opened because it’s one of the greatest spaces I’ve ever seen. Telling this story in this space is thrilling. Telling this story right now in DC is thrilling. It is astounding to read in the news what we’re putting on stage. And if we are fortunate, what we do in some small way can make a difference.