what's next

Now that my Drama League Fellowship is complete, everyone keeps asking me "what's next?" If I am being honest, I don't know. I don't have any gigs booked. I am on the job market with hundreds of others. My lease is up on April 30, 2012. This is what is true today.

As I move forward and try to plan a future for myself and Jordyn, I have been thinking less about what is the next thing, and a lot more lately about utility. What does it truly mean to serve or to be useful? How is theatre useful? How are the arts useful? And to what purpose am I an artist? What does it mean to be a good parent? And what choices are in the best interest of my child? I have realized through several uncomfortable months of feeling "lost," unsure, insecure, and doubtful, that I have not always been of use or an effective decision maker. This is what must change for me in 2012. It is not a resolution. I am not resolved to be useful, I have evolved to be useful.

I have given much thought to my core tenets, and not to solely focus on in my art, but in my life, as a human being, mother, artist, friend and neighbor.

Over the last several months I have discovered what is important to me and have distilled that down to:

Utility. It has become one of my personal goals, part of my artist mission, to be of service.

Community. I want to be a part of something; I want a sense of belonging; an active exchange of thoughts and ideas. I want to collaborate, converse, and create toward a common goal.

Leadership. I want to be not only accountable, but a willing representative of the values and mission of the community I serve. I want to facilitate, guide, and be a voice that people can depend on.

Language. This is my art and my politics. Through a system of symbols, signs, sounds, gestures, or the like used or conceived as a means of communicating thought and emotion, I want to make known my existence and the existence of those before me and the promise of those yet to come.


These are my four pillars. This is how I choose to move forward in space and time; how I am defining myself, and the work for which I wish to be remembered. Of course my identity is comprised of many things (a woman, mother, black, etc.) and I belong to multiple communities but at the center of my being and with the time I have to share this is what I seek.

DirectorFest is finally here

This has been an intense past seven days. I arrived in NYC one week ago (Nov. 30) to begin work on DirectorFest ’11. For DirectorFest, I’m directing Lisa D’Amour’s short play, My California. Everyday I find myself more and more in love with this play. After months of rehearsals in which I was supporting the work of someone else, it feels amazing to wrestle with a text and collaborate with actors on something that I chose. I have the most amazing cast. These ladies, Kelly McAndrew, Kari Nicolle, and Kate Hare, are all gracious, gorgeous, uber talented, and above all, willing to jump right in. I must sound like a kook to them in rehearsals, but they never let on. They commit whole hog to the story, and at least three times a day give me the chills.

Rehearsals began Thursday and already today was dry tech. I can’t wait until tomorrow when we have the actors on the set, in costumes, and light. I am the happiest camper of all time in the theatre. Everything else (and there is a lot of everything else in my life right now) simply fades to the background while we play, create, and make belief. It’s also quite fabulous to be working with so many women in the theatre. Our design team is most women, and my stage manager, C. Renee Harris-Alexander, keeps it 100% and I LOVE IT.

Soon I’ll see what the other directors have been up to when we bring all the shows together in two days for our dress rehearsal and opening night performance. I think this will be the one I always tell the kids about, “when I was a drama league fellow…”

…the world was full of infinite possibility.













me, Lily, Desdemona, and Amanda
Your Fall 2011 Drama League Directing Fellows

Giving Thanks

Well it is the day after Thanksgiving, “Black Friday” as it is commonly referred to, and I am sitting at a computer at my temp job thinking about my preparations for my extended stay in NY beginning next week.

It was about this time last year when the applications for the Directors’ Project went up, and so for this past year the Drama League has been a huge part of my life. For that I am tremendously thankful.

It is bitter-sweet that our fall fellowship will conclude in just under 3 weeks time, and the 4 of us will be off in the world (Des still under the auspice of the fellowship at Playmakers Rep). I can only begin to explain what this experience has been for me because I will reach the point where words fail. For the last 7 months I have been in rehearsal halls, techs, previews, design meetings, casting sessions, off and on Broadway shows, producers’ offices, actors’ dressing rooms, a lodge in the Berkshires, and here with you on this blog, and it has been the time of my life. And on a personal level I feel like I have achieved the impossible, because I have done it all while being a single mom (and as a member of a few other socioeconomically under privileged groups).

Now as I gear up for DirectorFest, I know that the rest is up to me; to go out in the world and make the art I am passionate about with people who inspire me, that I believe in, trust, and admire. IT IS SCARY, but I am ready, and so grateful for the time, investment, and resources of Roger, Gabriel, and the Drama League, and the camaraderie and support of the other fellows (fall, summer, musical, classical, present and past) has been terrific. (If you are reading this because you think you want to apply to the Directors’ Project, YOU MUST DO IT).

MY CALIFORNIA is all cast, and I couldn’t be more excited about these three women. This show has very quickly become an incredibly personal story for me and I am thrilled to bring it to life with these breath taking actors.

So I have a quick turn around trip on Monday to NY and back for our big production meeting, and then on Wednesday, Jordyn and I pack up for our 2 week stay in the big bad apple. WOW!

Diving in, in 5…4…3…2…

So Many Poets, So Many Plays

So my assisting gigs are all done and DirectorFest is fast approaching. I am over the moon to get back to directing my own projects. The time assisting is invaluable and educational, but it also reaffirms that I am meant to be directing.

I will be directing Lisa D'Amour's MY CALIFORNIA, and it seems like the right time in my life to give voice to this piece. I am a native Californian, from the SF Bay Area (where MY CALIFORNIA starts), and have only been away from home for 3 years and some months to complete grad school. Right now I am feeling very homesick and, like the character Ashley in MY CALIFORNIA, have this idealized Cali that I am trying to make it back to.

I go in to casting next week and am so excited to work with Michele at Cindi Rush Casting. I've never worked with a casting director before (though I have had a few artistic directors who in many respects where working with me in that capacity when I was directing at their theatres). I love that there is some one who hears what I am looking for and brings me several options to choose from.

I have been revisiting the script almost daily and am more and more in love with the play with each read. I feel like I can get back to my core (director) values and aesthetic with this material and I am just really feeling ready.

In other theatrically stimulating news, I had the opportunity to attend two readings this past week. The first was Marcus Gardley's THE HOUSE THAT WILL NOT STAND, as part of the BrandNEW festival at Hartford Stage. The play is an amazingly rich and poetic adaptation of Lorca's HOUSE OF BERNARDA ALBA. I loved everything about it, and thought for a first draft it was remarkably ready for some rehearsal. He is just a genius, and I'm not only saying that cause he is my friend.

The second reading was Laurie Carlos' MARION'S TERRIBLE TIME OF JOY. Laurie Carlos is one of THE most amazing artists I have had the honor of meeting. I am so glad the universe saw fit for us to collide, because I am lifted by having experienced her. This play is very much a score, a rhythmic,in a jazzed aesthetic, bridging gaps in space and time to bring three woman together in a New York kitchen, as a gift to a friend. Truly inspiring on so many levels and gets me even more excited about MY CALIFORNIA, because in a number of ways Lisa's play is doing some similar things.



Ntozake Shange, in purple, with the cast of for colored girls, from left, Aku Kadogo, Paula Moss, Rise Collins, Janet League, Trezana Beverley and Laurie Carlos

Audacity has made Kings

My last week with Davis McCallum and the Water By the Spoonful gang at Hartford Stage starts tomorrow. It has been a BLAST. This cast is an incredible and diverse group of actors with such a wide range of experience and hidden talents (Yoga Master, a crossword aficionado, incredible cook - are just a few). I have developed such an excitement for new play development AND love that I get to have a voice in the room.

We are just coming off of a weekend of 5 preview performances with a wide range of audience feedback, some great and some discouraging. It reminds me, once again, that theatre is an audacious act. At some point you have to believe in the work you are doing; in the story, in the effect it can have on audiences, in its absolute necessity. I believe in the absolute necessity of this story and feel so fortunate to sit with Davis and Quiara as they make the story stronger, clearer, and more immediate.

Tomorrow (well today I guess), we will put-in new pages in the afternoon and continue to refine tech. We are still adding and cutting props and scenery. I remember in my second year of grad school at UMass, when teching LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS, the TD told me that tech was the time for the director to pull out the axe, that I shouldn't be afraid to edit. I realize I have been. I feel like some one worked hard and I don't want to hurt their feeling by cutting something that hours of human and financial resources went into. Working with Davis now, I get it. It isn't about feelings. Everyone is there to support the story. To make it the best it can be. Davis edits with such clarity of purpose that everyone is on board. And if anyone is cursing him under their breath, I certainly haven't noticed.

WBTS will open Friday. I will shift gears and be back in the driver's seat. Let me tell you, even in the best of assisting circumstances, nothing beats doing your own work. I MISS DIRECTING. Just talking to the designers about my play for DirectorFest has filled me with so much purpose. I don't know what my life will look like the morning after DirectorFest closes, but I know that there is nothing in the world like directing a play. I hope I can do it for the rest of my life.

Thinking Like A Turg

So we are in our last week of rehearsal in the hall. On Saturday we begin spacing on the set and on Sunday we dive into our first 10 in 12. Over the course of this past week we have had the opportunity to run the show a few times, and the big conundrum remains, where to put the intermission.

New play development is such an awesome endeavor. I sit in rehearsal with my dramaturg hat on engaging in conversations on story telling and scene events. While the play is linear, Quíara's interest in writing a "free jazz" structure provides options for where the intermission can rest. But that decision also impacts whose story the audience feels they are watching and how the parallel story-lines ultimately collide.

For me, the question of intermission has always been about where the playwright put it or how to divide the play so that the second half isn't longer than the first. Awesome to be sitting next to the playwright as she and Davis, the director, decide. I need more playwright friends.

Water By the Spoonful - A Love Supreme

New plays devo

Okay so before I go any further, I must first share the BEST news I’ve gotten in recent weeks:

“Dear Dawn Monique Williams, It is my pleasure to inform you that your thesis ““What Country Friends Is This?”: Creating Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night Onstage, A Director’s Journey” has been accepted into Masters Theses of ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst, and you have been cleared for graduation. Your transcripts will now show that you have your degree. Congratulations!”

I finished grad school in May, but with the fellowship starting right away, I was unable to defend my thesis until August. Then the Grad School has to scour the thing to make sure the formatting and such is all in order, so while school has been out for a while, I’ve been waiting for the official #gurlyoudonegetajob email. And this morning it came. Over the moon about it.

So me & Hartford Stage: we are at the end of week two and I feel like we are moving at a great pace. Davis has staged the whole show (he calls it a first draft) and on Sunday we ended the week with an AWESOME stumble thru of Act I.

I find myself obsessed with the dramaturgy of this play. Our discussions in the hall about storytelling and structure are so exciting for me; Quiara making sentence level edits, and Davis “drafting” versions of the scene to show her is all so new for me as my specialty is classics and published plays. New plays have scared me because having the writer in the room has always seemed so intimidating. But this process isn’t scary or intimidating at all. Quiara is open and receptive and she and Davis have an incredible trust and rapport. I think I need more playwright friends.

Quiara’s writing is so rich and each character so intriguing. I am incredibly moved by the depth of these relationships, and when you see the play (which you will *hint *hint *nudge *nudge) you’ll understand how gifted a writer she is to craft such moving stories about people who by in large communicate through a chat room.

Ok. I will leave you with a few gems from the rehearsal hall:
“Then it becomes some bad grad school acting exercise”
“That’s a little to artsy dancie”
“If this were my MFA thesis, I’d have a lot of explaining to do”


"Acting Faces" collage from my thesis production of 12th Night