A Week In Heaven

by David Quinn, Trustee, Seattle Repertory Theatre

Somewhere between my walk with playwright A. R. Gurney, my drink with clown-extraordinaire Bill Irwin, and listening to the quiet poetry of the legendary Horton Foote reading from his one-act plays, it hit me: I had died and gone to theater-lover’s heaven.

Or I was in Waterford, Connecticut.

Surely, I must have expected this, right? I mean, it’s not every day that Ben Moore, Managing Director of Seattle Rep, emails me with a query: Would I like to attend the Eugene O’Neill Playwright’s Conference for a week as a member of their new Trustee Residency program?

Me? Spend seven days as an observer/participant at the oldest, most respected playwright’s conference in America? The place that has worked to develop and premiere over 700 plays and musicals in the past 40 years, including August Wilson’s FENCES, Lee Blessing’s A WALK IN THE WOODS, and John Guare’s THE HOUSE OF BLUE LEAVES?

What I wrote back to Ben: “Thanks for the opportunity. It sounds very interesting. Let me check my July schedule ...”

What I was thinking when I wrote back to Ben: “OH —MY—GOD!! Yes-yes-yes-yes-yes-yes-yes-yes! YES!! Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.”

And I began counting the days.

TRAVEL DAY: 7-15-02
Arrive in Boston at 5PM and run as fast as blazes to catch the train to New London, CT. Unlike the other trustees, I’ve decided to stay in the dorms of Connecticut College with the artists and interns. At 10PM, I encounter a Tony-nominated actor, dressed in flip-flops...and a bathrobe. “Hittin’ the showers!” he says as he wanders down the hall. Ah, dorm livin’!

DAY ONE: 7-16-02
8:00 AM: The day begins with a breakfast hosted by Howard Sherman, the executive director of the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center. Met all of the other board trustees—quite a crowd. In all, we represent ACT in San Francisco, Steppenwolf in Chicago, the Long Wharf in New Haven, the Westport Country Players, the Roundabout Theater in NYC, Arena Stage in Washington, DC, the Alliance Theater in Atlanta, and the O’Neill itself. I also meet up with Paula Butzi, SRO volunteer and supporter of the Hot Type series at the Rep, who is also attending the Trustee conference.

The O’Neill process is explained to us in some detail: After a competitive selection, 19 playwrights are invited to the conference to work on their plays for the month, some in full readings, some working in-residence. They are assigned a director and a full cast, but once rehearsal begins they have only four days to get the play on its feet for a staged reading. The process sounds like it has the makings of a great play itself: playwrights rewriting their scripts until all hours—four shows in rehearsal at any given time—artisans everywhere—and a pub on campus (it named after Eugene O’Neill, after all).

9:00 AM: Meet Jim Houghton, artistic director of the conference. Also in attendance is the cast of Peter Morris’ play, Pro Bono Publico, (PBP for short) the primary piece that we will be following this week. Get our schedule for the week. Pretty straightforward: up at dawn, sleep at midnight.

9:15 AM: The O’Neill employs an interesting process¤the playwright begins the first rehearsal by reading the entire play to the actors and those in attendance. We get lucky: The writer is a great actor and has us in stitches with his “voicing” of the characters. The basic plot: Jay, a corporate attorney, takes a Pro Bono case as a way to find meaning as his life falls apart. This leads to a sad awakening about the price one pays when we “serve others to serve ourselves.”

1:30 PM: Every day, after lunch, an “all-conference” hour is dedicated to a “talk” and a “Q&A” with a visiting artist. Typically, the entire company (directors, actors, playwrights, technicians, staff) attends these sessions. Today’s session features the renowned American playwright, A.R. Gurney, author of THE DINING ROOM and SYLVIA, among others. Pete, as he likes to be called, speaks about his life as a playwright, and his work as a “wright,” a craftsman with words. We share a lazy walk afterward, and he talks a little more about his writing process.

8:00 PM: Performance of THE BALLAD OF BILLY K, a play with music. While it is a rousing sing-along at times, the piece is quite weird. But the playwright is served: Later in the evening, she says that she was having a hard time “picturing the completeness of the work” until tonight. Chatting in the pub with various actors and playwrights.

1:40 AM: Must sleeeep.

DAY TWO: 7/17
7:00 AM: Oh my God, I shouldn’t have stayed out with the actors. That alarm hurts. Getting old.

8:00 AM: Breakfast is sparsely attended, but I meet Mark Ravenhill, a playwright from London who is here for the month working on a new project. “The schedule says breakfast from 7-8:15 AM, so that’s what I do,” he says.

The nice thing about the O’Neill is that it is a very egalitarian atmosphere. Everyone¤even the staff that has been here for years¤wears the same name badges (with no titles on them). You are just as likely to find yourself sitting down and chatting with a playwright as you are with a script intern. That’s how, after breakfast, I find myself talking to William DiCanzio about his life as a college professor and playwright. His latest piece is called HINDUSTAN, and deals with the romantic relationship between Edwina Mountbatten and Nehru as India fights for its independence; he’s a charming and intelligent man.

10:30 AM: The trustees sit in on a design discussion with the technical staff of the O’Neill and DiCanzio regarding his play. Nice dialogue with Skip Mercier (set designer), Jane Cox (lighting designer), and Rob Kaplowitz (sound) regarding design work and the economic challenges facing designers and the pressures they encounter in their work. Soon, the conversation turns to the “dream production” of the play. “Why do you spend the time talking about sets and lighting and sounds for a production that is essentially a reading on an empty stage?” asked one trustee. The answer was informative for all: “Remember, we are all here to serve the playwright. I’ve read his piece¤we all have¤and now I’ve got ideas based on his words. By sharing them, we are collaborating, and perhaps I’m getting to think of his writing of this play in a new way.”

Sure enough, not five minutes later, this is exactly what occurs. Rob, the sound designer, begins to talk about a particular sound cue that Bill has written into a scene. Rob imagines using a traditional orchestral Gilbert and Sullivan recording, then cross-fading to a sitar version of the same song, evoking the crossed influence that Britain has had on Mother India. Rob’s words open up a creative floodgate between Bill, Skip, and Jane, and soon they are off in another place, working on a scene. It is amazing to watch!

1:15 PM: Today’s all-conference hour is hosted by...the trustees! As today’s panelists, we were directed to talk about our individual roles as Trustees and our own histories as theater lovers. While this is fun, I’m now known as “the recipe guy who used to be on ‘3-2-1 Contact’.”

2:15 PM: Sat in on the afternoon session of PBP. They are in their second day, but they are STILL at the table, working through their questions in Act 2. The conversations are so specific and direct, so completely linked to motivation, intention, and performance, that the playwright is taking voluminous notes. Peter seems to be a supremely confident writer, and he is planning on reworking Act 2 tonight: a complete re-write.

9:00 PM: Paula Butzi and I sneak off to Michael’s Dairy in town with Jim Houghton and his daughter, Lily. Mmmm, fresh ice cream!

1:00 AM: Obviously, I haven’t learned my “go to sleep early” lesson and have just left the pub campus.

DAY THREE: 7-18
7:00 AM: Make the alarm stop, somebody. UGH.

8:00 AM: Breakfast with Mark Ravenhill, who tells me all about his latest piece, which has been written for high school students. Ten one-acts are commissioned and distributed by the National Theater to schools all over the country. Students are then able to have an authentic dramatic experience, working directly with a raw text that has never had a public performance. After they are staged locally, there are regional competitions and the winners play the National. Wish we had that kind of educational support on the national level.

The real story of the morning, though, is that Mark and I get in trouble with the chef for attempting to steal a coffeepot to make “real coffee.” He dumps our batch: the sad death of Starbucks blend.

9:15 AM: It’s Bill DiCanzio’s turn to get started, and he reads HINDUSTAN to his new cast, several of whom arrived this morning. Most of the trustees are in residence and the play is quite lovely. Now, having heard it, I think that the piece uses the affair between Lady Mountbatten and Nehru to mirror India’s coming of age with the Lady Mountbatten’s independence from the role she has played throughout her own life. A really lovely Act 5.

12:15 PM: Lunch with Hannah Kenah, an intern in her second summer at the O’Neill. After the conference, she leaves for a national tour. She’ll see most of the country in twelve months!
We strategize ... on packing.

2:45 PM: Critic’s Session. The trustees meet with the visiting arts critics, all of whom are participating in a 2-week, writing intensive program intended to help them become better at what they do. We speak about the role/responsibility of the critic to 1) their paper 2) the community at large and 3) themselves when writing reviews. It’s a heated session; as we leave, one of the critics says that she feels somewhat “squashed” by some of the interaction, so we are heading to the pub....

4:00 PM: Back to PBP to watch the afternoon rehearsal. Joanna Adler, playing one of the lead roles, is amazing and intense.

8:00 PM: Performance of LEVEE JAMES, by Sherry M. Shephard-Massat, staged in one of the outdoor theaters—the Edith—right under a gigantic tree. This is a dynamic and powerful two-person play that deals with the price one must be willing to pay to stand up for beliefs. The tree limbs, creeping into the stage, connected this work to the work of Zora Neale Hurston (the Harlem Renaissance writer) for me. Her use of the tree as a metaphor is so powerful, that it becomes hard for me to imagine the play on a stage without the tree.