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