Collaboration

I've asked Maggie Scanlan to help me with The Minnesota Starvation Project. I should say that I've asked her to direct it, although I haven't used that word yet, to her or to myself until just now. I asked her to collaborate with me on it, to help me shape it, to give me feedback, etc. But to ask her to direct it- implies a certain relinquishing of power that I know I need to do but am scared to.

This play is my baby. It has been percolating in my head for years, and I've written several versions of it. It takes a certain amount of humility to be able to say: I need help with this, I can't do it by myself.

As an actor, it's a lot easier for me to work with a director. I think of myself as a hired gun: I do my job, as I know how to do it, in order to carry out the vision of the director and/or writer (if that person is alive). I feel very confident in my abilities, and it doesn't hurt my feelings if I'm told that I made the wrong choice. Perhaps this comes from spending three years of grad school being constantly torn apart- I developed a thick skin.

With writing it's different. I feel a lot more possessive of the work, and a lot more insecure. I have had horrible experiences letting other people direct my work, so much so that for years I absolutely refused to allow anyone direct it but myself. But there is a certain limitation to this approach. This fall, for the first time in nearly eight years that I allowed someone else to direct something I wrote. It was a ten minute play I wrote for Commedia Beauregard's Masterworks: The Goya Plays. I feel like it was a good exercise in letting my work go. It was good practice, and the fact that I wrote the play specifically for the project helped, because I wasn't uncontrollably invested in it.

Also this fall I was in a play that I think was a good example of what a healthy collaboration can be. I had the opportunity to perform with Barbra Berlovitz in her play Stories as Told in a Bed which was directed by her longtime friend and collaborator Bob Rosen. The two had a shorthand form of communication, from their 30 years of working at Theatre de la Jeune Lune together, that was so fun to watch. In a way the dynamic they developed between writer/author and director is one that I would like to use in my own work. While clearly the play was Barbra's vision, she let Bob take charge the artistic direction of the piece once rehearsals started. It was a beautiful balancing act of listening, communication, and play.

I hope that Maggie and I can find a similar fruitful way of working. I know it's possible. We've done a number of shows together and I consider her a great friend. I feel some of my best acting work was done with her as a director. With that knowledge, I plunge ahead, trying to keep my eyes open, trying to keep breathing.