The Real World – Theater Edition: An Interview with Savannah Reich

Barbara Jwanouskos interviews Savannah Reich about her upcoming Bay Area production.

Savannah Reich is the type of playwright that when you read and hear and see her work, you’re like, “I want to do that! That’s so cool! Theater’s so cool!” I met her while in the second year of the MFA Dramatic Writing program at Carnegie Mellon University, headed by Rob Handel, and was blown away by her humor, theatricality, and the moving moments of human connection and confusion she creates within her writing. So, of course, I was very happy to learn that her play, Six Monsters, A Seven Monster Play was being produced by All Terrain Theater in the summer of 2015.

The show opens next Thursday, July 30th at 8:00 PM and runs on Thursday, Fridays and Saturdays until August 8th at the EXIT Theatre in downtown San Francisco. I had a chance to chat with Savannah about playwriting, the inspiration behind Six Monsters, and her creative impulses.

Savannah Reich, probably driving to California as we speak.

Babs: Very excited to interview you!

Savannah: Thank you! I am so excited to be interviewed!

Babs: To begin, could you tell me about your background? How did you get involved with theater and writing?

Savannah: I wrote my first play in the second grade. I’m not sure where I got the idea. My parents were both doing theater when I was a kid, as a prop-master and scenic artist at the Guthrie in Minneapolis, so I’m sure I had already seen plays? I am counting this as “my first play” because it was more elaborate than a show I did with friends in the basement or whatever- it had a typed script, which went through several drafts, and I think I forced my entire second grade class to be in it, although I don’t remember that part.

So as long as I can remember I had this incredibly specific compulsion to write plays. I briefly went to NYU for the undergraduate playwriting program, which I was not really prepared for at eighteen. I dropped out after a year and decided I would never write a play again- I was just going to be wild and free and be in punk bands and experience real life. But then I started writing plays again probably six months after that.

I recently found the script for my first play in a box at my parent’s house; it was about two witches who turn people into chickens and serve them to children at an orphanage, which actually sounds like something that I might be working on now.

Babs: How would you describe your style and what interests you?

Savannah: The way I’m thinking about it these days is that I am interested in taking inexplicable emotional processes and making them into something concrete and mechanical. I am obsessed with the Charlie Kaufman movie “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” because it does this so nicely- it takes this very gooey personal feeling, the grief about losing a shared past when you end a relationship, and makes it into this action story. It literally ends with a chase scene. So that’s a really nice way to create ways to talk about things that maybe don’t fall into the cultural shorthand.

More concretely, my plays tend to be removed from true-to-life situations- as Sarah Ruhl says, “my characters have no last names.” They are animals or ghosts or subhuman beasts. They tend to be suffering greatly in some neurotic, cyclical way and they all talk on rotary dial telephones.

Also, I am interested in structure because it is the essential relationship between the play and the audience, which for me is at least as interesting as the relationships between the characters.

Babs: I think Six Monsters, A Seven Monster Play has an interesting origin story – do you mind sharing and then how it developed from its inception?

Savannah: Yes! You were there! It was very early on in my first year at CMU, maybe the second or third week, and Rob Handel had us do a writing exercise that involved beginning a 60 page play at nine am and finishing it by midnight. The exercise was so great, but I feel like I don’t want to give it away in case he is going to do it again next year- part of what was great about it for me was the surprise. I had all these ideas for plays that had been percolating for a long time, and I was fussing over them and trying to make them “good”, and then we got this exercise that said, “Okay, forget about all those plays- here’s a prompt, now write this play. Write this play today.” It was totally liberating for me.

Before grad school, I had been writing plays and producing them myself, so I think that I had gotten into this trap of keeping my producer’s hat on while I was writing. I would think about making props affordable, stuff like that. It was dumb. This exercise broke me out of that. The original opening stage direction for “Six Monsters” was something like, “There are six audience members seated on a wooden cart. The wooden cart rolls through an infinite darkness.”

I also think I put a bunch of things that felt really vulnerable and revealing to me in this play, and maybe I wouldn’t have if I had been imagining that it would ever be performed. I write much better when I am able to convince myself that no one I know will ever see it.

After I finished the play, I co-produced a one night workshop performance of it with our fellow MFA writer Dan Giles, with him directing, me as the skeleton, and six amazing CMU undergrad acting students as the chorus, which I will get to brag about when they are all famous in like twenty-five minutes.

Babs: When I last saw this piece, you were actually performing in it as the Skeleton. How do you think performing/not performing in your own work influences how you see the play, what to develop/not develop next?

Savannah Reich as the Skeleton carrying Jeremy Hois as the Baby in the Pittsburgh performance workshop at the Irma Freeman Center for the Imagination directed by Dan Giles in February 2014.

Savannah: I’m not sure how I feel about this anymore! I am worrying about it a lot in a neurotic and cyclical way! I have performed in my own work a fair amount, and sometimes I think I don’t want to do it anymore, because probably it would be better with real actors who are good at acting. But then I recently saw the performance artist Dynasty Handbag in New York, and I love her, and I thought that maybe I should always perform my own work. Not that I am a performer like she is- I tend to be visibly thinking on stage in that way that playwrights do when they try to act- but I do think there is something special about seeing someone perform their own words, there is a kind of specificity to it.

But I’m not going to be a performance artist because I love actors so much. They are my favorite thing to look at, especially when they are in my plays being hilarious. It’s great to be a playwright because we get to see all these very attractive people pretending to be us, pretending to have our same anxieties about capitalism or intimacy or whatever, which feels deeply healing in some probably very messed up way. Also good collaboration makes the show better, of course. The actor can see a lot of things about the show that I can’t.

I don’t know that I learn anything much from being in my own plays. I played the part of the skeleton in the workshop mostly because it felt too personal to turn it over to an actor. But now I have a little more distance, and I’m so excited to see what Laura Peterson does with it.

Babs: In the San Francisco production, is there anything that you are most looking forward to seeing or experiencing?

Savannah: I was just talking about how much variability actors bring to the table but of course that’s also very much true of directors. I haven’t worked with Sydney Painter before, and seeing her take on the piece is probably what I’m the most excited about. I haven’t been in town for rehearsals yet, and I’m looking forward to seeing the ways that this crew has interpreted the show in different ways than I would have imagined.

Babs: Any advice for playwrights in creating new work or getting it produced?

Savannah: For me the simplest way to get your play produced is to do it yourself. It is only very recently that other people have wanted to produce my plays, and that is a new and exciting thing, but it’s important to me to always know that I can make my own work, and that I never need to get picked out of the pile or get the grant or win the contest to make my art.

Babs: Any shout-outs for shows, events, or other things going on around the Bay Area that you might check out while you’re here?

Savannah: If you come to Six Monsters; A Seven Monster Play you will also get to see a short play by the fabulous Tracy Held Potter called Texting. And we should probably all get on a plane to New York to see Dan Giles’ play How You Kiss Me is Not How I Like To Be Kissed at the New York Fringe Festival.

Also, this.

Learn more about Savannah Reich, her screenplays, plays, and upcoming artistic projects from her website, http://savannahreich.com/.

Theater Around The Bay: Adventures in Site-Specific Theater

We continue our series of guest bloggers with another story by Tracy Held Potter, who has written for us in the past. This week she takes us beyond the black box and into the great wide world of site-specific theater.

Artists and audiences are always clamoring for something “new,” something just a little bit outside of what they expect, so when I decided to start self-producing and I had a budget of zero dollars, the idea of creating site-specific shows seemed like an obvious and brilliant strategy.

Going into my company All Terrain Theater’s (http://www.allterraintheater.org) fifth season of producing work, I started reflecting on some of the adventures that I’ve had producing site-specific theater.

The first play I wrote outside of school was a 10-minute motherhood nightmare called “Reality Checkout,” and it took place inside of a baby store. As an entrepreneurial person, I thought that I could create a fun and low-budget production inside an actual baby store, take advantage of a captive audience, create an audience for my work and for the young actors I was working with, and also introduce more customers and sales for the boutique baby store that I was collaborating with. Everything would be so perfect and everyone would walk away with more of everything that they wanted!

This introductory collaboration was actually very lovely. I did a little grant writing project in exchange for free rehearsal and performance space at a boutique baby store in the East Bay, I worked with actors who were willing to accept a share of donations as payment, I already owned all of the props, and all the scenery was built into the real-life store.

We did a three-show run one Saturday morning during the store’s regular business hours. We had maybe eight audience members total during the entire production. What happened to “if you build it, they will come?” Apparently, people don’t flock to inconvenient locations for a free performance of someone’s 10-minute play unless they’re really, really motivated to go. Lesson #1.

Our next production, which was happening about a week later, was a traveling 10-minute show called “The Spin Cycle” and it took place in a laundromat, so we decided to perform this show guerilla-style in laundromats all over the East Bay—in Berkeley, Oakland, and Alameda. The only laundromat where we asked for permission to perform was the one that I used to clean my own laundry, and that’s because I knew the people there and I really didn’t want them to get mad at me. It turns out that when you perform in a laundromat, the sound of washing machines and dryers makes it really hard to hear actors. Lesson #2.

Laundromat – Colin Potter, Pablo Vadillo, and Dee Dee Hilgeson sneak into an Oakland laundromat in an early All Terrain Theater performance.

Also, if your scene is spread across two locations—the dryers are on one side and the folding tables are on the other side—then people can not follow your play at all. The play then becomes performance art and not theater. Which is fine … if that’s what you wanted. Lesson #3.

Our next set of shows took place inside of apartments, which was fantastic because we had a lot more control over our space, and the audiences who came to those performances really intended to see theater. The drawback of doing theater inside a private residence is that sometimes potential audience members are skeptical that a show being performed in a residence is worth seeing. At least a laundromat is in a public space—it’s already legitimate because it’s a real business. However, anyone could just randomly put on a “show” in their livingroom and that’s supposed to be theater? Venues determine credibility. Lesson #4

Fortunately, by the time we got to the apartments, we had finally learned to reach out to the people who would be most receptive to our residential productions: close friends and family members. Lesson #5.

Our biggest site-specific production was Barbara Jwanouskos’ “It’s All in the Mix,” a play about three DJs that we performed inside of a record store in Oakland. Although the venue wasn’t that close to BART, it had the perfect feel for our show. The front of the building was a record shop and the interior of the building where we performed was a warehouse type space that felt like someone’s basement or garage. In other words, the type of place that a DJ might practice spinning.

Record Store – Johnny Manibusan, Kristoffer Barerra, Brady Brophy-Hilton, and Champagne Hughes figure out how to use a record store for Barbara Jwanouskos’ “It’s All in the Mix.”

In this production, I learned that doing large-scale site-specific work meant that I had to start fretting about things that producers take for granted in a traditional theater space, like seats and lights and sound equipment. Most traditional theaters happen to come with actual seats. We had to borrow ours from one of our sponsors. What about lighting and sound equipment? We had to import our equipment and figure out DIY ways to make it work. Small-scale site-specific work is super easy, but the bigger the production becomes, the more I consider taking the show to a space designed for theater. Lesson #6.

Producing work in non-theater locations helps make theater accessible to people who feel like “theater” is too stuffy for them (artists can’t be pretentious about their work when it’s performed next to a basket of someone’s dirty underwear), and it makes theater physically accessible to people who don’t live near theaters or who don’t live near theaters doing work that is relevant to them.

But mostly, creating theater in an alternative space is SUPER FUN. Site-specific work is for adventurers looking to mine treasure and overcome seemingly insurmountable—and extremely ridiculous—obstacles at every turn. Every performance becomes a triumph as a space that wasn’t originally meant for theater becomes a vehicle for creating collaborative art. And what’s more fun than saying that my baby store play was performed in an actual baby store?

Tracy Held Potter is a writer currently working as an MFA candidate in the Dramatic Writing program at Carnegie Mellon University with Rob Handel. She is the Artistic Director of All Terrain Theater (www.allterraintheater.org), Executive Director of Play Cafe (www.playcafe.org), and Co-Founder of the 31 Plays in 31 Days Challenge (http://31plays31days.com). She’s looking forward to spending winter in San Francisco where she can start saying things like, “You think this is cold? Well, you clearly haven’t had to deal with a Polar Vortex.”

Theater Around The Bay: It’s Alright, You Can Take Your Foot Off The Clutch Now

Our guest posts continue with a piece by Sam Bertken. Enjoy!

I hear you, I hear you—“Help, Internet! I am really nervous about this new thing that I’m going to start trying out, and I’m not sure I’ll be able to handle it! Can you please provide me with witty repartee and insight from people that have ‘been there’ so I feel less overwhelmingly nervous?”

Alright, alright, sure, I wasn’t doing anything, anyway.

Okay, let’s play a game: close your eyes. No, wait, actually, open them. You’re going to need to read this in order to see where I’m going. Sorry.

Alright, low start, but we can come back from it, because I got an ace in my back pocket:

Do you guys like Kermit the Frog?

Yeah, there we go, everyone’s on board now. Who doesn’t love a gangly, felted frog with weirdly-shaped pupils, opining for the greener grass on other side of that oft-ode’d rainbow? I mean, when you put it that way the list gets a little longer, but for the most part I’d say there’s a collective nod of recognition when anyone listens to The Rainbow Connection. It’s about achieving a dream, it’s a promise to strike out for one’s self. It’s not a lament about the lilypad upon which you currently find yourself, but more of a love song that’s about the one right over there.

If only it wasn’t out of hop’s reach…

But it isn’t! Not always, anyways. And sometimes, with the right wind current and enough hamstring training, you might land easily in a wholly different context, catching new flies, writing new love songs to different sorts of weather phenomena; sometimes you’re widely considered a performer and then suddenly you find yourself in the director’s chair. Sometimes you’re part of a group ensemble making decisions collectively for your art and then you’re leading a group as the even-keeled captain to achieve that same aesthetic. Sometimes you get really bored while taking time to do some tech work, but when you’re back in a performing role, the whole world behind the lights has turned itself on its head. It’s a lot to wrap your head around, sort of like a long, pink, sticky tongue primed for catching passing insects.

Let’s leave the frog metaphors behind from here on out, shall we?

As someone who recently sat down with his accomplishments from 2013, I came to a few realizations, all of which primarily oriented around trying out new paths, to see if I wanted to explore them a little bit further: Write more (here I am)! Try directiong, somehow! Produce something! But where does that impetus lie? How do you get off the couch and start making calls, writing manifestos and making it happen for yourself?

I interviewed a few of my acquaintances about their experiences shifting gears, so to speak, in their creative lives, to help you—YOU!—make a decision on whether that impossible dream may not be so impossible as you may think.

Adam Smith is the Artistic Director of the newly-formed San Francisco Neo-Futurists, and was active for years prior in their New York chapter. Siobhan Doherty is a local performer (also originally hailing from New York), who recently took a gig directing for the Bay One Acts and is running with the same wild abandon as a preschooler holding scissors. Eli Diamond was a high school performer who, for college requisites, spent some time in the lighting booth and painting sets, and has since returned to the limelight with a different take on what makes him look so good.

To get at the impetus, that tipping point where things start to really come together for someone whose just shifted gears that these fine folks share, I asked our group about the origin story behind their decision to make a creative change. Adam Smith had this to say about the new run of the SF Neo-Futurists’ ongoing production, Too Much Light Makes The Baby Go Blind:

AS: I learned I was going to move out here in the middle of my last New York Neo-Futurist production called “On the Future.” The immediate thought was, “Oh the Bay would be a great place to start another Neo-Futurist company,” but didn’t really think much of it. A few months later Lucy Tafler (now our Managing Director) and Ryan Good (one of our bi-coastal Neo-Futurists) were out for an extended vacation. We saw a couple of shows in the Bay, and eventually came to the conclusion that there was room in the scene here for Too Much Light.

SB: Yes, I can definitely see how having an established structure and group of experts working with you can make things start happening at a nice, easy clip.

AS: Needless to say Ryan and Lucy’s vacation has been extended even longer.

SB: Okay, no need to start crowing about it, okay? Congratulations. But what if you’re not motivated to break borders creatively just because you’re breaking them geographically? Siobhan has been performing around the Bay Area for years now—where did this itch to sit in the director’s seat come from?

SD: After acting for so many years, I started to form opinions about what makes successful theater. My impulse to direct sprung from my desire to see how those opinions would play out in performance. Also, morally, I longed to have more ownership of the overall messages I was putting out into the world.

SB: I hear ya! The more experience receiving direction on the actual stage, the more your own ideas percolate, is that it?

SD: I have experienced many, many times as an actor when I think a scene could have been more effective if a director had used more active, actor-centric language. For example, instead of “do that section faster”, saying something along the lines of “let the excitement of each new idea build and carry this section forward”, would have made a world of difference.

SB: Who better to know how to direct an actor than just another actor? I’m following your train of logic so far.

SD: Lastly, I would say about 80% of the theater I see is TOO SLOW. I hope to counter-act that instinct. I also hope to explore new formats for an old medium. Site specific theatre, and one on one performance, are two arenas in which I think there is lots of contemporary and relevant fun to be had.

SB: As a creative person, wacky-awesome ideas are always pulling you in different directions, like an unfortuante medieval criminal and his quartet of horses (perhaps an overstatement to the uninitiated, but just you wait—it can feel this intense.) Eventually, it seems, it just becomes too much, and you have to use the experience and the connection and the artistic will you’ve been cultivating to make your dreams finally happen, darn it!
What about you, Eli? What prompted your brief time dangling from catwalks, hanging gels and focusing lights?

ED: Well, the tech work mostly started at NYU. First year students have to run tech on all the shows. I did lots of lighting and set design. Set design was far more my thing than lighting. There’s something that feels really powerful in creating the world the characters live in, plus I feel like a MAN with my powertools.

SB: No arguments there, that’s for sure. Also interesting that your creative change, like Adam, didn’t really come from a place of internal need, but from a source of external compulsion (such as a degree requirement, or a job offer). Or maybe just a need to make screwguns make that awesome “WHIRRRRR” sound, in this case.

SB: So once you pick up the manly powertools and you find yourself other side, what’s happening now? It’s all started, sure, in a boring, general way, but once you’re in the thick of it, that’s exciting, right? Or does the floor open up beneath you, and you’re dangling above an entire universe of new opportunity? Is it breathtaking in a good way or a pants-shitting way?

AS: Ask me again in a year. It’s too early. The real test will be after about 3-4 months when everyone is really acclimated to the performance schedule and we’re trying to do gigs and workshops, and making big decisions about direction.

SB: This sounds like the dangly feeling I mentioned earlier.

AS: As Artistic Director, there are more tasks to accomplish, and there is more pressure to meaningfully contribute to the local, national and international art conversation.

SB: Yikes.

AS: I’d say it’s largely positive. As an artist, I’m creating work that I might never have created if I stayed in New York. Between the life experience of picking up and moving, and being in a role of leadership, it has been pushing me to re-think my artistic choices and impulses.

SB: Not so yikes. That actually sounds pretty compelling to any artist out there whose eyeing some fresh new challenge. I’d say that’s the dream a lot of people hope for when they do jump into something new. A different perspective, a more nuanced view of the work you were creating before—it’s like a boot camp for better artistic expression! What do you think, Sio?

SD: Directing has been satisfying in new ways. It forces me to find a succinct, verbal way to express the meaning of a scene. It may even force me to find several ways of doing so if an actor is not comprehending my message. I must understand the piece extremely well in order to do that successfully.

SB: Yeah, like, you gotta read the whole script, definitely.

SD: Also, it is a great feeling to be surprised by your actors with their own ideas about a scene. In many ways, I think a great deal of good direction depends on casting actors that are willing to experiment and then just helping them to shape what they are naturally drawn toward. Not top-down, but bottom-up. If it comes from them, or (a la Inception) feels as though it comes from them, the results are more connected and resonant for the actor, and therefore, the audience.

SB: It must be kind of weird to have these thoughts about molding people who are in the position you were once in. I mean, you can’t have been the first, right? But that’s a whole ‘nother blog topic, isn’t it?

SD: The ego-centric part of me misses some of the focused praise afterward, since people often have no idea that you are the director. Although, that anonymity does give you excellent opportunities to overhear unfiltered audience opinions…

SB: Sneaky! Would you consider abandoning directing for acting, or vice-versa?

SD: No.

SB: Oh. Well. That’s, actually, liberating, and a good reminder for folks hoping to make a switch in the near future. It’s not like a door closes behind you—nothing’s that dramatic. You can sort of skip between them as your mood shifts. That’s a comfort, to find one other form you really rise to, find great satisfaction from, isn’t it, Eli?

ED: Lighting’s a little bit more monotonous and tricky to pin down. Lots of the work involves changing minor details. The lens of the light, the filter, etc. Things that wouldn’t really be noticed by the common person watching.

SB: I can see how going from creating a work of art, a character, that’s the center of everyone’s focus, a part of the show that, to the general audience member, makes-or-breaks the production in a certain sense, is a little more interesting than picking between Light or regular Amber for a general wash.

ED: The satisfaction is just different for me. I’ve never been an artist in that regard, so when I do scenic work or lighting, ther’es a detachment. I simply don’t get as attached to my work there the same way I do when I’m spillig my guts, sometimes literally, onstage. When a sets onstage, the sets on display, not the designer, or his intention, or his inner life so much.

SB: I see where you’re coming from here, yes. I’m sure the opposite is true for the artist’s who end up making their actors look and sound as good as they do. And now that you’re on the other end, in the role that you presently inhabit, I’m sure things are different. Your world’s opened up! The hue of everything is this crazy, LSD-neon shade of blue, AM I RIGHT?

AS: I think the main difference is, if you’re cast in a company that already exists, it has a history and a wealth of knowledge to pull from. You can see different writing styles and how each ensemble member’s fits with each other. As a new company we’re establishing that with each other. As someone who has done it before, I want to support the expansion of ideas, but without being prescriptive to define what we do as being only one or two people’s perspectives.

SB: Okay, so perhaps switching your creative role isn’t completely earth-shattering. But it certainly isn’t back-tracking, from what I can tell here. Especially in the case where you’re adopting greater responsibilities and taking performers less experienced in your style and collective vision under your wing, there’s a lot of almost paternal excitement to see it grow.

SD: It has helped me as an actor empathize with directors. I have a first-hand understanding of just how difficult it is to juggle a mountain of variables when it comes to casting and scheduling.

SB: So now there’s this whole side-wink to every director you’ll be working with from here on out, now that you understand their pain.

SD: Also, it can be a blessing and a cruse to work with actors that you know from past projects. On the one hand, you can cut to the chase and you know what they are capable of, and on the other hand, they may not have fully made the mental adjustment that you are now in a position of authority.

SB: Directing friends. Another lengthy topic—let’s go get beers and hash it out!

ED: Doing these jobs gave me far more respect for them as an actor. I’m not going to lie. I was a dick in high school to some of the techies. When you haven’t been fully exposed to what it takes to make a show, you fail to realize – they are working.

SB: What was that far of chorus of “Finally, they realize!” I just heard from the stage manager’s box?

ED: Not to say that actor’s don’t work, but there’s a huge element of play in our profession that, for me, was lost in technical work. I’m sure there’s someone out there who gets the same thrill form changing filters in a light as I do from being on stage, but it’s not me.

SB: I’m not going to ask you to describe what the “thrill” feels like. Entrapment and everything, ya know?

ED: There’s also the respect you have to give when you’re working and you realize, “My job is to make this guy on stage look good. “ When I just acted, I didn’t even think about that. Now, I hope to make the techie I’m working with WANT to make me look good.

SB: And then spill in the chocolates, the roses, the invitations to dinner… But for real, it seems to me that, even if a creative role didn’t “do it” for you, there’s a whole different world that has opened up to you. One becomes less of a high school dick and more of a compassionate theatre professional who is sometimes a dick to high schoolers (but just the ones who deserve it, of course). That’s important for professional development, but as an artist, entering a new world, having everything turned upside-down, that’s only going to add to your empathy engines. And while that alone may not make you a better actor, or artistic director, or director, or writer, or stage manager, or blessed box office volunteer, it’s going to make you a better person to work with.

So there it is! The lilypad is in clear sight, and you don’t need to stay over there for the rest of your damned life. Why not leap and take the plunge? From what I can tell, the benefits speak for themselves.

Adam Smith and the other Neo-Futurists have begun their sometimes hilarious, sometimes tragic, always edifyingly personal run of Too Much Light Makes The Baby Go Blind, which runs every Friday and Saturday.

Siobhan Doherty is going to be lending her new-found love of direction to an exciting Rough Readings piece for Playwrights Foundation by Anthony Clarvoe called Early Romantics, and it plays at Thick House 2/10. In addition, she is directing a solo-performance festival called Modern Lovers: Women & Technology for All Terrain Theater in the spring.

Eli Diamond is going to be laying low until DivaFest mounts Kristin Hersh’s Rat Girl in May. He’ll be playing the role of Dave- and the drums.

Sam Bertken is an actor and a writer based in the San Francisco Bay Area. A company member with Naked Empire Bouffon Company and an intern for the SF Neo-Futurists, he has performed with various companies, such as SF Theatre Pub, Custom Made Theatre Co. and the Exit Theatre.

Theater Around The Bay: Mom at Work (From Poopy Diapers to Producing Plays)

Tracy Held Potter tells us what it’s like to be the Theater Maker who “has it all.”

“The world must be peopled.”
-Benedick, Much Ado About Nothing

As a mom of two very, very active young boys, people sometimes marvel at my ability to work in theater while raising children and ask, “How do you do it?”

Well, I have to.

For one thing, I love my boys like crazy and yet I sometimes feel like I need to be around grown-ups, because I occasionally have to do something else besides getting that urine smell out of my bathroom … and clothes … and carpet.

I get stir-crazy being home and doing the same things all the time—the repetition that is so great for young children is hard on me, because I want to hop around and do different things all the time. I want to be swept up in a story and frantically run around trying to collect teams of people, rewrite pages, and sell tickets to shows. That’s why theater feeds my spirit so well: I get to be around grown-ups who like to play and I get to do something completely different every day.

When my first son Henry was born, I marveled at him and wondered what he would be like and what incredible things he would be doing someday. I asked myself what I could do to help him achieve his dreams. I knew immediately that I couldn’t help him achieve his dreams if I didn’t fight to achieve mine.

I actually wrote my first non-academic play within days of Henry’s birth. My post-partum experience was extremely overwhelming, and I was on bedrest for weeks. I wrote a short play called “Reality Checkout” about a new mom’s nightmare about being emotionally attacked in a baby store, and somehow that play helped me to feel a little less lonely.

Seven months after I wrote the play, and about a year after I completed my Theater Arts classes at Laney College, I gathered some friends and approached the owner of a local baby store about producing the play in her shop.

I fantasized about how great the production would be and how dozens of people would flock to this little baby store, how delighted they would be about the production, and how enthusiastically they would purchase products from this independent, mom-owned store. I was making the world a better place!

Within a couple of weeks, the project expanded to include a total of four short plays in various site-specific locations with a showcase of all of the plays at the end of the summer. I wrote three of the four plays, directed two of them, and produced all of them, while working part-time and caring for and nursing my eight-month-old.

We produced the first play at the baby store, but it was kind of a mess. In addition to losing half of our rehearsal time to events outside of my control, we had audiences of about two or three people at each of the three performances, and children who weren’t part of the show kept running through the stage.

Somehow, I managed to bring Henry to a number of rehearsals, and I got away with nursing him while the actors were running lines or practicing their staging. I also brought him to some of the performances, but that turned out to be extremely stressful for me because I would bristle every time he fussed during a scene, worrying that the audience was getting distracted or annoyed.

Despite all of the things that weren’t working, the production gave me the opportunity to break outside of my comfort level and showed me a world that I really wanted to be a part of, and I discovered that this world was accessible to me.

Since then, I have continued to write, direct, and produce plays through my company All Terrain Theater and I’ve tacked on a number of other projects as well.

I’ve found that any work is accessible to me as a parent if my collaborators are comfortable with my status as a parent. Small things like inviting me to bring my children to meetings, telecommuting, or giving me autonomy to generate my own schedule all make it more possible to work while raising small children.

My friend Rachel Bublitz and I created an international playwrights challenge called 31 Plays in 31 Days while each raising two children under the age of four, and I think we accomplished it because we could have meetings at the playground while our children were playing. We worked our schedules around preschool, naps, and making dinner, and we did a lot of the work online. Working with someone who “gets it” makes it possible to flow with the craziness of parenting without fighting against it.

My children are a great gift to my ability to be productive. Because my personal time is so limited, I have to maximize every moment of it. If I have thirty minutes because my kids happened to fall asleep in the car, then I’m writing or responding to important emails. If I have a script due, then I write it as soon as I can, because I never know when I’m going to need to keep my son home from school because he’s sick, or if it’s going to take three hours to put my kids to bed (which is a lie, because I do know, and it’s every single night).

I’ve talked with a number of women who run theater companies in the Bay Area in collaboration with other women, and it’s exciting to hear them create spaces for their children (or future children) within their theaters so that they can continue to be creative and productive in the arts while still being close to their children.

The more we can incorporate the needs and realities of parents in our creation of theater, the richer our stories will become, because we’ll be representing more of the world around us.

But, more importantly, we need children around to remind us what theater is about: creating a magical experience that transports us into another world.

Tracy Held Potter is a writer, director, and producer currently working as an MFA candidate in the Dramatic Writing program at Carnegie Mellon University is Rob Handel. She is the Artistic Director of All Terrain Theater (www.allterraintheater.org), Executive Director of Play Cafe (www.playcafe.org), and Co-Founder of the 31 Plays in 31 Days Challenge (http://31plays31days.com). She changes a lot of diapers, dispenses many hugs, and is extremely grateful to her dad for caring for her two incredible boys while she runs off to pursue her dreams.

Introducing The Directors Of Pint Sized IV! (Part Two)

Pint Sized Plays IV is more than halfway through it’s run! This year our excellent line up of writers is supported by an equitably awesome line up of directors, so we thought we’d take a moment to introduce some of them and find out more about who they are, what they’re looking forward to, and how they brought so much magic to this year’s festival.

Tell the world who you are in 100 words or less.

Tracy Held Potter: I’m a writer/director/producer who recently discovered that I have to create inspirational mantras that are the exact opposite of the inspirational mantras that I used in high school. I run All Terrain Theater (www.allterraintheater.org) and Play Cafe (www.playcafe.org) and I’m a co-founder of the 31 Plays in 31 Days Project with Rachel Bublitz (http://31plays31days.com). My biggest projects right now are directing The Fantasy Club by Rachel Bublitz and getting ready to move to the East Coast for a fancy-pants MFA Dramatic Writing program at Carnegie Mellon University.

Jonathan Carpenter: Formerly a biologist and Bostonian, I’m now a San Francisco-based theater director. I love bold, new plays that sometimes have music and sometimes don’t happen in traditional theater spaces at all.

Colin Johnson: I am Colin and I like telling stories and stuff.

Colin Johnson: What A Rebel

How did you get involved with Theater Pub, or if you’re a returning director, why did you come back?

Tracy Held Potter: I saw several Theater Pub shows in the past year and loved them, especially Pint-Sized Plays, and also got to run sound for Pub from Another World, which was extremely fun. “Audrey Scare People Play?” Whaaaaaat!

Jonathan Carpenter: This is my first time directing for Theater Pub! I met Meg O’Connor at an event for the SF Olympians Festival. She mentioned that her friend Neil (Higgins) was looking for directors for the Pint Sized Festival. A few days later, Neil and I were emailing each other about the line-up for this year’s festival, and not too long after I was on board to be part of the Pint Sized directing team. I had always been really interested in Theater Pub, and so when the opportunity arose to get involved, I jumped on it.

Colin Johnson: I got involved through the fearless producer called Neil, whom I’ve worked with during the last two years on the SF Olympians Festival.

What’s been the most exciting part of this process?

Jonathan Carpenter: There’s nothing better than being in the rehearsal room and digging into a script with actors, so I would say that my rehearsal time with Jessica (Chisum), Lara (Gold), and Andrew (Chung) was the most exciting part of the process for me. Multitasking (by Christian Simonsen) is a deceptively tricky play. You have to keep asking yourself, “Wait, what the hell is going on here?!” All three actors were really smart about figuring out what makes these characters tick. I had a blast bringing the play to life with them.

Colin Johnson: Analyzing and then over-directing the crap out of a one page script. Sometimes the greatest challenges come in the smallest packages. Oh, and also practicing a musical number with a drunk llama.

Tracy Held Potter: Getting invited to direct for Pint-Sized plays and then finding out that I was going to direct a piece by Megan Cohen were freaking awesome. I still relive moments from watching Megan’s piece from last year, so this really has been a thrill for me. I also loved rehearsing with Charles Lewis III, Caitlin Evenson, and Jessica Rudholm … and I won’t lie that sewing the knight props and costumes in the middle of the night was pretty special as well.

What’s been the most troublesome?

Tracy Held Potter: Keeping things simple with this brief yet epic play. I tend to work on projects with a minimal amount of props and set design, but there’s a part of me that wants to go all out with this one: more rehearsals in the space and more elaborate costuming. I got to work with a great cast and I we pulled out a lot of interesting material from the script in a very short period, so I can’t really complain, though.

Colin Johnson: Troublesome? I don’t know the meaning of the word, I say! But I suppose rehearsing with a drunk llama can have its setbacks.

Jonathan Carpenter: Casting was probably the trickiest piece of the puzzle for me. There are, of course, so many wonderful actors in the Bay Area; the only problem is that they’re so wonderful that they’re always cast in multiple projects! The Theater Pub performance schedule is great because Monday is usually a day off for actors, so it’s possible to do Theater Pub along with other shows. But it doesn’t always work out. I lost a terrific actor that I was really excited to work with because it turned out that she was needed for rehearsals for another project during the final week of Pint Sized performances. And then when I had to find another actress for that role, there were several other wonderful folks that I couldn’t use because we couldn’t find common free times to rehearse! It all worked out beautifully in the end – thanks to Neil’s guidance, persistence, and huge network of actor friends – but there were some moments where I was really banging my head against the wall.

Jonathan Carpenter: Casting Clusterf**k Survivor

Would you say putting together a show for Pint Sized is more skin of your teeth or seat of your pants and why?

Tracy Held Potter: I would say “seat of your pants” because I have sensitive teeth and the other metaphor makes them hurt.

Jonathan Carpenter: Pint Sized is definitely a seat of your pants kind of endeavor. You’re making theater that’s going to happen in a bar where anything can happen. Someone could walk through your scene to go to the bathroom. A noisy garbage truck could whiz past Cafe Royale. Who knows, an especially drunk audience member might even try to get in on the action. So, you have to stay adaptable and be ready to fly by the seat of your pants. But that’s also what’s so exciting, right? Live theater!

Colin Johnson: I’d say seat of the pants is a better term. When you perform in public, especially a bar, you must be prepared to adapt and circumvent logistical problems at a moment’s notice. Skin of the teeth makes it seem like we’re barely hanging in there, which is untrue. This production has actually been one of the most tightly coordinated and relaxed projects in a while for me.

What’s next for you?

Colin Johnson: Next, I’m writing a full-length adaptation of Aeneas’s tale for SF Olympians: Trojan Requiem (titled Burden of the Witless) in November. I also have a recently-completed independent short film that will hopefully be making festival rounds this year. And most likely directing a Woody Allen One-Act early next year in Berkeley

Tracy Held Potter: I’m directing and producing a HILARIOUS sex comedy by Rachel Bublitz called The Fantasy Club that we’re premiering at The Alcove Theater near Union Square from Aug 2 – Aug 11 (http://fantasyclub.brownpapertickets.com). It’s about a stay-at-home-mom who faces the man she’s been fantasizing about since high school and has to decide between her marriage and making her fantasies come true. I’ve spent a lot more time on Google researching underwear and logo contraceptives for this show than I have for anything else. In August, we’re also relaunching the 31 Plays in 31 Days Challenge and rehearsing for Babies, the Ultimate Birth Control: Terrifyingly Hilarious Plays about Parenting for SF Fringe (http://www.sffringe.org), which both Rachel and I wrote pieces for. In the midst of all this, I’m going to finish packing up my family to move to Pennsylvania. You know, taking it easy.

Tracy Held Potter: Taking It Easy

Jonathan Carpenter: I’m about to begin rehearsals for the west coast premiere of Roland Schimmelpfennig’s The Golden Dragon, which Do It Live! Productions will be producing in A.C.T.’s Costume Shop theater in September. And after The Golden Dragon, I’ll be directing readings of Jeremy Cole’s On The Plains of Troy and Madeline Puccioni’s The Walls of Troy for the SF Olympians Festival.

What are you looking forward to in the larger Bay Area theater scene?

Tracy Held Potter: I’m looking forward to “A Maze” by Rob Handel and produced by Just Theater at Live Oak Theatre, which just opened. Rob is the theater teacher for my new grad program and I’ve heard great things from people who’ve already seen it (phew!). There are a lot of shows that I’m really sad to be missing because I’ll be out of the state, but I’ll be catching all of Bay One-Acts and at least a couple of SF Olympians shows towards the end of the festival.

Colin Johnson: BOA is always an amazing fun time! As is the Olympians! They’re both a great conglomeration of all the best the Bay indie theatre scene has to offer! And great folks!

Jonathan Carpenter: Oh my gosh. I’m a huge nerd, and I just can’t wait to see Ian McKellan and Patrick Stewart in No Man’s Land at Berkeley Rep. I mean, it’s Gandalf! And Professor X! AND they’re doing No Man’s Land! I have loved Pinter ever since I first dove into his plays a few years ago while working on a production of The Homecoming. They’re so juicy. So I’m really looking forward to that production. I’m also really excited to check out Rob Handel’s A Maze at Just Theater this summer. I read a draft of the play about three years ago, and I was completely enthralled. It read like a comic book, and I was totally fascinated to imagine how you might stage such an intricate play. I’ve heard great things about the production, and I’m really looking forward to it.

Who in the Bay Area theater scene would you just love a chance to work with next?

Jonathan Carpenter: Woah! It’s way too hard to pick just one artist! Can I say “all of them”?!? Well…actor Reggie White is probably at the top of my list. He’s been a friend of mine for a couple of years now, and it seems criminal that we haven’t done a show together yet.

Tracy Held Potter: I can’t count how many actors, directors, stage managers, writers, and other theater people that I got to work with this year who I really admired. I have so many theater crushes here that it’s crazy. With that said, I would fall out of my chair if I got to work with Desdemona Chiang on one of my plays.

Colin Johnson: I would love to have a rematch of my 2012 Olympians knock-out, drag down fight with Jeremy Cole. But most of my Bay Area dream collaborations have been fulfilled, with hopefully more on the horizon.

What’s your favorite thing to order at the Cafe Royale?

Jonathan Carpenter: Whatever stout they have on tap.

Colin Johnson: I’m a fan of the Marin Brewing Company IPA. But if I’m expected to be productive, a Cider or a Pilsner.

Tracy Held Potter: I don’t really drink that much so I like to order soda or tea, but last time the bartender made me a limeade which was pretty good. There are photos of me on the Theater Pub Facebook page drinking that, if anyone’s interested.

Don’t miss the last two performances of Pint Sized Plays IV: July 29 and 30, at 8 PM, only at the Cafe Royale! The show is free and no reservations are necessary, but we encourage you to get there early because we will be full!