Once Upon a Time…

February 14, 2012

By Bryan Hunt

Assistant Director, Into the Woods

It’s week one here at rehearsal for Into the Woods, and already we are off to a rollicking start. Just as the score begins with a steady, lively pace of chords that doesn't let up until the final moments of the show, our rehearsals are driving forward at the same pace that I'm sure will not let up until our opening night in Baltimore... and in Westport!

First rehearsals are often like the first day of school, bringing together a bunch of people, some strangers, some friends, a teacher (in our case a director) and lots of lessons to be learned. Your head is spinning trying to remember the 25 new names that have been introduced to you, and filling with the stories of catch up since the last time you saw some old friends.



Mark addresses the cast at the first rehearsal

After this customary meet and greet, our fearless leader Mark Lamos explained his vision for the production. He started off by stressing that this will be our version of this story. Though many productions have come and gone, and with many still to come, this is the only time this group of people, at this moment in time, will create this version of the piece. He went on to talk about the plays foundation on fairy tales, but to him they should be treated as just tales. Fairies never once appear in the script, and beyond that, a fairy tale implies a happy ending with no real threat or danger involved. For instance, when you think of Hansel and Gretel for instance (though they don't appear in the play) you think of a pair of charming little children, skipping through the woods, leaving bread crumbs and after cleverly overcoming an evil witch, they return safely home.  Never once, at least for me, do you consider the fact that these are two children, KIDNAPPED in a time without Amber Alert by a stranger, and only after MURDER do they reach safety. And at what price? These are the kinds of things we want to explore and exploit for this production.



Allen Moyer's scenic design model

 After a discussion of the set designed by Allen Moyer, and costumes being created by Candice Donnelly (designer for the Playhouse’s Lips Together, Teeth Apart in 2011) we settled in to a read/sing thru of the script. With our music director Wayne Barker plunking the score out on the piano, we heard this wonderful story out loud for the first time. What struck us most was the power of the woods. Though it has no lines or lyrics, it is a character in the play, ever changing, deceiving, manipulating, and teaching the characters who journey into the woods. If you've ever ventured out into the woods I'm sure you've had that moment when everything is going just fine, there's a pretty stream, a chipmunk, then you turn a corner and all of a sudden, perhaps because of the sun changing position or some other mental shift, the world becomes uneasy and foreign. It can be very terrifying. This is what we believe Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine were after when conceiving this story, and what we hope to bring to you as an audience. 

Costume Designer Candice Donnelly
discussing sketches with Mark



Check out these fun links:

Click here to meet the cast of Into the Woods.

Click here to view the Into the Woods teaser, created by

Baltimore’s CENTERSTAGE.

An Interview with Graphic Designer Sean Pomposello

January 31, 2012

By Beth Huisking

Associate Director of Marketing

The 2012 Season artwork was unveiled in October of 2011.  During the preceding months, the Marketing and Artistic staff was meeting with graphic designer Sean Pompasello to create the unique look for each 2012 Season production.  This month I was given the opportunity to interview Sean and talk about that process and what he loves most about graphic design.

Beth Huisking: How and when did you become interested in graphic design?

Sean Pomposello: Very young, actually. I was always the kid doodling in the margins of his homework at school. Mostly an alternate take on movie posters of the day. Then, around middle school, I became fascinated with cameras, and spent quite a lot of time fiddling with them. In college, I was an English major. So, I’ve always hovered around creative, in one form or another.

BH: Can you walk us through the process of designing the artwork for a single production?

SP: I’m confident my approach differs from many, but I begin by immersing myself in the source material—the script for the play or musical I’m designing for. I attempt to break down some approaches I’d like to explore into broad areas I call “buckets.” Each one represents another avenue of thought. I then gather as much swipe or reference that has mined a similar conceptual conceit. So, I essentially have a concept board filled with reference material for each approach I intend to develop. From that a single idea will emerge. Sometimes, I will share the boards with a Producer, to give them a suggestion of where I’d like to pilot the title, but more often I simply return with a range of fully resolved ideas that have launched from each concept board.

BH: This year, you also created our “Theater Worth Talking About” season art.  How does developing a piece for the entire season differ from creating something more production specific?

SP: Well, it’s a more holistic sort of approach, but not so different from the key art development process. The major difference is that I think copy first. I wanted to create an engaging handle that sums up the season at Westport Playhouse and then a graphic look, or tone and manner that works in an umbrella fashion over the entire year. While I’d like to take full credit for the handle, to be honest, it was simply a phrase I kept hearing in the offices at WCP. I pretty much just parroted it and adorned it with a compelling look.

BH: You design for multiple platforms (packaging, print, television and web).  Is there one you prefer to design for?

SP: To be honest, I consider myself a storyteller first and foremost, so I enjoy assisting Producers in detailing what their production is all about in advertising terms. Nowadays, when you come up with an idea for a poster it’s rarely going to exist solely as a poster—the art will need to work in many different advertising applications. So, I really don’t favor one medium over another. I try to have the artwork exist above any individual discipline or convention. The enjoyment I derive from it comes from the act of reimagining the show’s over all identity for different applications. 

BH: What were some of your most memorable projects? Most creative/unique?

SP: The ones that you remember the most are not the ones that get the most awareness, but the ones where you had to solve a problem. A lot of what I do is problem solving. You have certain objectives that have to be met, so it becomes sort of a puzzle that needs to be pieced together. I had an assignment recently where the producer had a title that was an expletive that couldn’t be printed in most newspapers and essentially informed me that I’d have the job if I resolved the problem (in graphic terms or otherwise), which I did in a rather clever way, if I don’t mind saying so myself, but still didn’t get the job. Surprisingly, that was a high water mark for me.

BH: What do you enjoy most about your career?

SP: I enjoy having the freedom to daydream. My job is to dream up ways to make productions appealing to consumers. If I do my job correctly, I help a show get a running start. This gets me up in the morning and often keeps me awake at night.

View Sean’s work in the Playhouse’s 2012 Season brochure!

Other examples of Sean's work you might recognize:

An Interview with Bill Massolia of Griffin Theatre Company

January 25, 2012

By Angela Marroy Boerger

Education and Community Programs Coordinator

In anticipation of our upcoming Family Festivities performances of The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales on January 29^th, Playhouse Education and Community Programs Coordinator Angela Marroy Boerger interviewed Bill Massolia of Griffin Theatre Company about the exciting production for young people.

Angela Marroy Boerger:  You’ve had a rich career as an active playwright and as a founding member of the Griffin Theatre.  What drew you to adapting The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales for the stage?

Bill Massolia:  To begin with, the book is just hilarious. I am also drawn to more subversive children’s literature and less the “fuzzy bunny” children’s stories I grew up with when I was young. I think that young people enjoy those stories most of all. 

AB:  Could you tell us a little bit about the story?

BM:  Well, I have taken some liberties with the original story. The book is structured as a series of different fairy tales twisted and combined to become something else. Rather than tell the story in a similar manner, I have chosen to make “Jack” the central character in the story. And the stories are told by “Jack” to the “Giant” as a way for “Jack” to avoid being eaten by the “Giant.”

AB:  As a book, The Stinky Cheese Man plays a great deal with its physical materials – rearranging pages, talking outright about the table of contents – in ways that break down the barrier between the book and the reader.  How do you translate some of these techniques to the stage?

BM:   I honestly haven’t chosen as an adaptor to try and recreate the ideas of how a book is constructed and deconstructed onstage.  That is what makes the book unique as a book. I have made changes to make the book unique as a play.

AB:  The narrator, “Jack”, is a very clever and savvy, almost a snarky kind of character.  How do you think he speaks to children and families today?

 BM:  “Jack” is the main character in my adaptation of the book. He is the narrator and drives the action in the play which is different than in the original book. By making that choice I have made the story more theatrical.

AB:  The Stinky Cheese Man, along with the Griffin Theatre’s touring shows, has been performed across the country.  Do you have a story or two about the adventures of traveling with a show?  Care to share a story about a less than smooth moment along the way or a funny onstage mishap?

BM:  Sure. On one particular tour, the actor’s flight was cancelled the night before departure. So we had to scramble to get the cast to the theater the following morning. The cast actually flew out of Chicago early in the morning before sunrise and landed just two hours prior to curtain.  They rushed to the theater, loaded in the show and performed.  I guess the old saying “the show must go on” really does ring true sometimes!

AB:  What is your favorite thing about writing and producing children’s theater?

BM:  My favorite thing has to be how much fun kids have watching my plays.  Their reaction is always immediate and instant. And they certainly let you know whether or not they like it. They’ll just tell you!


Visit the Playhouse website for more information about upcoming Family Festivities performances.

The Playhouse is Open to Families

January 18, 2012

By Angela Marroy Boerger

Education and Community Programs Coordinator

Some of my most treasured memories as a child in New Orleans include seeing live theater with my parents and sisters at Le Petit Théâtre du Vieux Carré.  Dressed up in our Sunday best, we’d head out to the corner of Chartres and St. Louis in the French Quarter and spend the afternoon being entranced and transported by the magic on stage.  It was utterly intoxicating , and I was hooked.  Now as the parent of a toddler, I can’t wait to take my daughter to see live theater.  Just a couple more years and she should be ready!

You might not know that the Playhouse is always open to families and that we have a variety of programs on offer specifically for children.  During our Winter at the Playhouse season, we offer six family shows as part of our Family Festivity Series.  Between November and April, we present children’s musicals and plays based on beloved works of literature, whether classic or new.  From popular new works like Skippyjon Jones, The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales, and Pinkalicious, to time-tested classics like Hans Christian Andersen’s The Ugly Duckling and the perfect-for-middle schoolers presentation of Nearly Lear, we present shows designed to open the mind and delight the senses of the children in your life.  Each show is preceded by a craft or theater games-based activity in our rehearsal barn, and there’s always time to browse our bookstore with a hot cocoa from the concessions booth in the lobby.  An afternoon at the Playhouse is an experience not to be missed!

Between April and November during our Season, we are always looking for ways to make it easier for families to see live theater as a group.  For each of our season shows that is family-appropriate, we offer a Together at the Table Family Dinner.  For one low ticket price, families gather in our rehearsal barn for a casual communal dinner and informal discussion before attending the show.  It’s an easy way to bring the whole family to see the work on our stage.

You don’t want to miss our annual Community Day (scheduled for Saturday, April 14^th), when we throw open our doors to the whole community and invite you in to see the behind-the-scenes and backstage workings of your Playhouse.  From insider’s tours to sneak peeks of the construction and design process, to art displays and notes for the history buff, there is something for everyone.  We are also always open for private, free-of-charge tours for families, schools, and local organizations, and we often work with girl scout and boy scout groups for service and badge projects.

The Playhouse is yours to enjoy, and our doors are always open!

Casting a Family "Holiday"

November 28, 2011

by Anne Keefe

Artistic Advisor

Very often we in the theatre talk about a ‘theatre family.’  Sometimes that refers to the instant bond a cast makes in the course of putting together a show, sometimes we mean the larger community of actors, designers, technicians and administrators who struggle together to make a living making art.  I’m honored to be a part of the Playhouse family, but I think of the theatre community more as a circle.  If you stay in the business long enough, you will continue to run into so many of the same people over and over again.  I think the joy I feel when I make these reconnections is one of the nicest parts of this crazy business.

I first did Holiday at Long Wharf Theatre in 1982. Written by Philip Barry (also author of The Philadelphia Story), the play later inspired a film of the same name.  A beautiful actress named Jill Eikenberry was playing the role of ‘Julia Seton’ and she had just had a baby.  It was pretty unusual at that point in my career to know someone who had a baby.  It seemed so hard.  She commuted to New York, her son wasn’t sleeping through the night, and she was acting 8 shows in a 6 day week, while her husband, also an actor was the primary caregiver for Max.  I thought it was awesome – quite literally.  Before the run was over, I discovered I was pregnant with my daughter.  So Holiday is a potent title for me.  A couple of years later, I did a production of Paris Bound, also at Long Wharf, where the company really did form quite a family.  It was a lucky coming together of a group of people who genuinely liked each other onstage and off, and the friendships continue to this day. That’s where I came to know Jack Gilpin and his wife Annie McDonough, who have, by the way, both graced the Playhouse stage many times.  Not long after Paris Bound closed, they discovered they were pregnant and before long, Betty Gilpin was born.   For our upcoming Script in Hand playreading of Holiday, Jack and Betty will be playing father and daughter, and acting together for the first time.  I just love that!

When Joanne and I were into our second season here at the Playhouse, and panicking about what to do in our third, Paul Newman announced one day that “he thought he might be able to act the role of the ‘Stage Manager’ in Our Town.”  He did a little ‘audition’ for Joanne soon after in their living room, and she called me on the phone to say she thought he’d be pretty good. And damned if he wasn’t!  Jim Naughton, our director (talking of our theatre family) started auditioning for the key role of ‘Emily’ and we met Maggie Lacey.  She became our luminous ‘Emily’ here at the Playhouse and on Broadway, and we watched with pride as her career took off. She joined us for the Script in Hand playreading of Harvey, and last season, she appeared in our cast of Lips Together, Teeth Apart.  Just prior to coming back to the Playhouse last summer, she received terrific reviews for her work in Horton Foote’s The Orphan Home Cycle at Hartford and in New York.  That’s where she met her husband, Bill Heck.  They married in September, and will be playing the husband and wife team of ‘Mr. and Mrs. Potter’ in Holiday for the first time since becoming Mr. and Mrs. Heck! This tickles me to no end!

Westport is home to so many talented actors and actresses. Long before I came to the Playhouse, I knew the work of Ed and Dorothy Bryce, an acting couple with credits as long as your arm.  I would run into Dorothy at the Farmer’s Market, and she would speak with pride of her acting son, Scott Bryce.  When Scott married, I heard about his beautiful new wife, Jodi Stevens (who I had actually just seen on Broadway), and then of course when Jackson was born, about her beautiful grandson.  I came to know both Scott and Jodi.  We would run into each other on the train platform and gossip about the business.

I was so pleased that both of them could free up their schedules to join us as another married couple, playing a married couple (the ‘Seton Crams’) in Holiday.

Jordan Coughtry, who most recently made us laugh as ‘Sir Andrew Aguecheek’ in our beautiful production of Twelfth Night, or What You Will, will be welcomed back into the Playhouse family fold as ‘Ned Seton.’  And back after only a month’s absence is Kieran Campion.  Joanne and I fell in love with him when we met during Journey’s End, so much so that we had him back for David Copperfield.  He has become a Script in Hand playreading regular. We couldn’t wait to get both these talented actors back on this stage!

And while we are on the topic of ‘the family,’ you should know that you will see a couple of actual members of the Westport Playhouse family onstage for Holiday. Playing the role of ‘Henry’ (which is really a compilation of all three  servants– one of the money saving tricks of the casting trade for these readings!) you’ll see Chad Kinsman, who works with our marketing department when he isn’t acting, directing or applying to graduate school. You may have seen him in the Playhouse Box Office.  And of course, our ever present reader of stage directions is the multi-talented and tireless Kim Furano, who keeps both Michael Ross and Mark Lamos on track in her job as Artistic and Management Associate. Keeping the entire production running from backstage is our wonderful resident stage manager, Matthew Melchiorre.

And perhaps most exciting of all will be the chance to have two brand new actors join the Playhouse Family Circle.  In addition to Bill Heck, we will welcome a lovely young actress, Rebecca Brooksher to play ‘Julia Seton’ (the role referenced in the first paragraph).  If my theory about circles is true – we will be seeing her again!

I’m looking forward to sharing this beautiful and timely play with you – the audience.  In truth, you are the most important part of the Playhouse Family. Happy Holiday!

Tickets are available online, 24/7!

The Playhouse's Family Festivities Series continues this December

November 16, 2011

by Angela Marroy Boerger

Education & Community Programs Coordinator

With Halloween and even our first snow storm of the season behind us already, the fall and winter holidays are just around the corner – as indeed we can hardly avoid noticing in the ever-present cacophony of holiday shopping jingles and advertisements!  As we look ahead to shorter days and bleaker weather, it’s a great time to remember those heartwarming traditions and stories that make up our own practice of the season.  No matter how you celebrate the holidays, it’s an opportunity for remembering family, counting your blessings, and for finding joy in simple things and unexpected gifts.

For us here at the Playhouse, having just lowered the curtain on our busy, vibrant and frenetic 2011 Season, the change to cooler temperatures means the start of our Winter at the Playhouse season.  From November through March, we take a break from producing and offer Family Festivities presentations, Script in Hand play readings, and our popular Holiday Special Events.  This year, we are excited to invite you to A Season of Miracles, a sparkling collection of holiday tales from different cultures, onstage Sunday, December 11 at 1pm and 4pm.  Through stories based on The Gift of the Magi and The Nutcracker, The Kwanzaa Kite, and A Chanukah Miracle, A Season of Miracles reminds us that we can experience miracles ourselves through the gifts of love, kindness, giving and sharing.

Some of these stories are interpretations of tales that have been passed down from generation to generation, while others are based on stories that began as novels or short stories.  In conjunction with the show, the Playhouse is hosting a Writing Challenge for area students, encouraging them to preserve their own family stories in the written word.  For details, visit our website–and in the spirit of holiday giving, every entrant will receive a prize voucher for a complimentary frozen yogurt from Pinkberry in Fairfield.  All tickets to A Season of Miracles are just $15.

As an extra special treat, holiday cookie decorating with Michelle Jaffee from Sweet & Simple will be a pre-show activity, beginning at 12 p.m. and 3 p.m on December 11.  Participation is $5 per child, payable at the event.  Reservations are necessary through the Playhouse box office.  Please call 203-227-4177.

The holidays are always a great occasion for spending time with loved ones, and we hope you will think of your Playhouse family when making plans for holiday outings.  Whether you join us for A Season of Miracles, the rock concert-musical Striking 12, a musical evening with The Broadway Boys, a reading of the play Holiday, or any of our other Holiday Special Events, we thank you for your participation in the life of the Playhouse.  YOU are the gift that we are thankful for!

Learn more about the stories in A Season of Miracles and find activities to do with your children by downloading the study guide.

GrooveLily's concert-musical "Striking 12" rocks out at the Playhouse this December!

November 9, 2011

by Chad Kinsman

Patron Services Supervisor

One of the best things about our Winter at the Playhouse events is the wide variety of performances available to our patrons. It’s a great chance to share many different types of performances, some wonderfully different and unexpected. Over the last few years we’ve shown beloved holiday films with audience participation, a hilarious one-man version of It’s a Wonderful Life, concerts that bring down the house, and more. This year I’m looking forward to GrooveLily’s performance of Striking 12 on Saturday, December 10^th.

I have to admit that before we programmed GrooveLily, I wasn’t too familiar with them, but after few quick Google searches, I’m hooked. Calling themselves “Just your typical violin/piano/drums theatrical power trio,” they’ve been recording and releasing music since 1994, much of it available to listen on their website. Making my way through their songs, I’m struck by their inventiveness, their exploration and mastery of a wide variety of musical styles, and if all that sounds a little too scholarly, their songs are just fun and catchy as well. I’ve had several impromptu listening parties at my desk this week. What I really love is that it’s not kid’s music, but music that is accessible to kids and adults, and everyone in between! One of the hardest things about planning a family outing during the holidays is trying to find something everyone will enjoy, and I can safely say Striking 12 is just that. Younger patrons will enjoy the story, tweens and teens will like the band’s sense of humor, and everyone will love the songs.

Striking 12 is the concert-with-a-story, band-is-the-actors secular holiday show that put GrooveLily on the map of the musical theatre world in 2002, co-written with Tony-award winner Rachel Sheinkin (The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee).  Since then it’s played all over the world, including long runs in the band’s hometown of New York City, and was nationally released on CD in 2005. Based on the classic and poignant story of ‘The Little Match Girl’ by Hans Christian Andersen, the story has been “rewired” and modernized. It feels like a story I know, but in a completely new and immediately engaging version. Still there is the poignancy, but unexpectedly mixed with musical comedy, pop-rock tunes, old-fashioned uplift, and the little salesgirl whose holiday spirit can’t be matched. Inside the clever lyrics and great melodies are important life lessons.  It’s a touching, family-and-friends-affirming show perfect to help spread the holiday spirit to you and yours.

Tickets are available online, 24/7!

Mahira Kakkar, "Viola” in "Twelfth Night", blogs about her Playhouse experience – FINAL POST!

Post #5

November 4, 2011

by Mahira Kakkar

To build 

Brick upon brick

Is an effort.

Each time a little more clay

gets under your nails

or a little more skin

gets into the brick.

and so 

whether you sign your name to it

or not

the thing is yours

And you too belong to something.

We had a talkback yesterday where somebody asked us, “How do you play these roles differently from the people who’ve played them before?”  And the answer is: We don’t. We try to be as truthful as possible, to ourselves, to what we see with the vision and the imagination we have and we try to find the truth that we unearth – a truth that is different every day. Because the audience changes things with its responses, the way we feel and react as characters changes from day to day. But the play, the structure is the same and we bounce around within that, overturning stones, trying to see what comes up. And what is real on that day.

So strange to talk about truth and real in the context of a play, is it not?  Philosophers have sometimes mocked artists, building castles in the air, trying to find truth through the ephemeral, through something that is written on the wind, through something that could with some justification be called false.  But here’s the thing. Is the life of the soul and the mind not as real as this table and this chair that I am using at this moment? Therapists would argue that point heatedly.

When I am onstage and honing in on Orsino’s crystal blue, piercing eyes (Lucas Hall has marvelous eyes – I thank his parents) and trying to find my lifeline in them, what is real to me, is his face, is the ground beneath my feet, my breath arcing out and my thought doing its best to reach him and bring him home to me.  I bring this up because yesterday I was feeling very ill. I had a severe migraine and then felt giddy- all of this while on stage.  It was also arguably one of the best shows I had.   Rachid Sabitri, playing my brother Sebastian, said that it was perhaps because I was ill that I had no extra energy to “act” and therefore it was truthful.  I do know that I needed EVERY actor on that stage last night, including Nakeisha Daniel and Kim Maresca (Olivia’s ladies-in-waiting), who largely have non-speaking parts. I needed to look into their eyes to ground myself. I needed to listen to them because that sparked my next thought; without them I would have been lost.

I was hesitant to tell my cast that I was feeling unwell; I didn’t want them to feel that they had to be less than their glorious selves in an effort to take care of me.  But I realized, regardless, we all DO take care of each other on stage – not in a koochy koo, schmaltzy way, but we do our jobs the best we can and trust the other actors on stage are coming from the same place. We all build this thing together each night.

I was telling Rachid, that as an actor I’m interested in finding moments that crystallize, when everything comes together in a big whoosh and you feel that all past and future are only relevant insofar as they have brought you to this NOW, and that generations have said yes so that you could be right here, right now, saying these words, looking at these people.  All this sounds a little over the top, I recognize that.  I work in making the unreal real; put my “over the top-ness” down to being a byproduct of that.

Yesterday each moment felt like “This is it. This is it.” There was no room for “Oh that moment is gone – wish I’d done it differently”- it was about now and now and NOW. It would have been a great feeling if it wasn’t going hand in hand with me also feeling that I was going to black out.

But I was proud at the end of the show. I could feel that that there had been flow, that we’d all hit the sweet spot a number of times, and we’d built something really good last night.

Tomorrow night we stop building.

Someone else will take over somewhere else and Twelfth Night will be done over and again but we as a cast will not continue with this production.

There is a sadness to this.  As actors you learn to come together and make a family right away. You have to because of the intimacy you need to portray onstage. So you learn to do it quickly and become proficient at getting naked – emotionally and otherwise if so required, with virtual strangers. And you do it because....well there are so many reasons. Margaret Atwood talked about writing as a need to make a mark on the world, “negotiating with the dead” she called it. We actors don’t build something permanent- it’s in your mind and your hearts. Some days I do it for my personal fat lady, who’s the little brown girl in the audience for whom the world and all its possibilities is just revealing itself. 

But you have to say goodbye. 

And all of us know that even the longest running show will someday come to an end.

However, the thing is still inside us - we did it - we learnt how to scale this particular mountain, and it’s hopefully inside you, the audience.  So it is a death? Or does a play, when it ends, still have a creative life, just as Denis O Hare’s performance in Take Me out, will always stay with me?  I don’t know. 

As I grow older, I become less interested in the answers and more interested in the questions. Or I should say, more interested in the various answers that a question raises.  Towards the end of the play Sebastian and Viola go through a list.  It is a record of who they are and where they come from. It is necessary for them to say this because the world they came from is lost to them.  It is necessary for them to resurrect it through their words – essential to voice their history and try to recreate it in some ways.  When Orsino says of Sebastian “Right noble is his blood”, my Viola falls even more in love with him. Orsino knew my father; he knows where I come from and is familiar with my history. He helps keep the memory alive.

So - here’s to you our audience. Thank you for coming on this journey with us. Thank you for keeping the play alive in your memories. Whether or not you think the couples in this play make it in the long haul, is a question for you - something perhaps you will take time to build. I sincerely hope you do. For without you, how could the characters in Twelfth Night and we as actors, possibly carry on?

Mahira Kakkar, "Viola” in "Twelfth Night", blogs about her Playhouse experience – new posts every week!

Post #4

November 1, 2011

by Mahira Kakkar

What do you do when the vicissitudes of life hit you in the face? How do you handle it? Do you just gird your loins and carry on regardless?  Actors, theater folk, are some of the bravest, smartest and most flexible people I know.  If there’s a problem, or an obstacle, we welcome it as a challenge – like Sisyphus, our rock is also pushed up in joy.

One of our cast members, Darius DeHaas (who plays the fool, “Feste”), severed his Achilles tendon the day before opening. Heroically, he wished to carry on.  We canceled a preview, he got comfortable in a wheelchair, and the show went on. It was by no means a fortunate accident –  the actor was probably in considerable discomfort.  He had surgery shortly after the show opened and he was playing a large, demanding role. However, and there is a however, his being hampered physically, served to illuminate the relationship between him and the young fool, “Fabian” (played by Justin Kruger) who was looking to learn from the master. 

Both Dairus and Justin have been thorough professionals throughout this process.  They’ve adjusted to huge changes in spacing the play and in their characters and done it all without complaining. The next time I hear someone say that actors are lazy (a common misconception) I will point them in the direction of these two fine folk, who along with the rest of the cast, worked hard to make sure the show was ready to open on schedule. 

Recently however, there was an obstacle that we couldn’t overcome. Our hearts were willing, but the weather gods were not.  The freak snow storm that hit us this past Saturday delayed the train that several cast members were on en route from New York. By the time they got in, it was late (an hour past the scheduled matinee show time) and many audience members had already exchanged their tickets.  It was still snowing so heavily out that we didn’t know if we would have to cancel the evening’s performance as well. We were all set to do a variety show for those people who had come out to see the afternoon performance, but figured they might need to go home in order to avoid the traffic and worsening weather conditions.  We did indeed have an evening performance after all and we knew that those people who had turned out really, really, really wanted to be there. So we gave it our all.  (Sidebar: In her memoir, Colleen Dewhurst tells this story about playing Lady M. in Central Park and how there was a downpour.  The cast wanted to go on but the show was canceled. She looked out and saw one lone figure in the bleachers – it was Tyrone Guthrie who had come out specifically to see her play the part.

I think about this story a lot. 

I also think about all the things that actors go through to act, especially in the theater. If you’re in the theater, if you’re largely a theater actor, chances are you are not doing it for the money. If you are, you’re probably wondering what made you think this was a financially rewarding career in the first place. We are often broke, depressed, unemployed, without health insurance and sacrifice health and sleep for our art. In the end, we don’t get to actually tread the boards that often, the competition is intense and sometimes we don’t know whether we will have the creative freedom we so yearn for, in the plays we actually get to do. Yet we do this thing. And we can’t really do anything else with as much passion. David Schramm who plays “Sir Toby Belch” put it really well; he said to me “Darling- either you’re in this or you’re not.”  And I have to say that if you are in it for the long haul, it’s because there is some fire that is driving you. I don’t know what word to use for it –  if it’s love, it’s an exhausting love. But there is also great, great joy in it. Incomparable joy.

When you’re in a show that’s going well – and by this I mean you believe in it – the writer is terrific, the director is a GOD, the cast gets on and creates magic together, metaphorical sparks are zinging across stage, you’re in the zone – there is a sense of flow and ease and just the right amount of tension on stage – phew! It’s like sex. It’s like really, really good sex.  And before you know it time has flown, the curtain’s come down, you’re taking your bow and the show is over. We all strive for moments and shows like this. And some of us crazy few would rather die on stage doing what we exult in, than anywhere else.

So even though we’re injured and achy and getting snowed on, we still want to do our show. 

Because really, who would pass up the chance of terrific sex?

Mahira Kakkar, "Viola” in "Twelfth Night", blogs about her Playhouse experience – new posts every week!

Post #3

10/26/2011

by Mahira Kakkar

I’m sitting on the train blogging and listening to Amy Goodman on "Democracy Now" as I write. I’m trying to draw a parallel but there is none.  There is no real co-ordinate that I could draw between my activism and this play, Twelfth Night.  Except one. I believe in staying alert and aware of one’s surroundings. I think it’s an issue of survival.  And at the risk of sounding glib, I think this is what helps the characters in Twelfth Night move forward. 

The stage we’re on at Westport Country Playhouse is a rake - it’s angled forward. This automatically forces us to engage our core.  So this engaging is what interests me.

And while people engage with their surroundings and other people in various ways - protests, blogs, art...the characters in Shakespeare’s play engage through words and argument. By argument, I don’t mean arguing - I mean positing something and then making your case for it.  I think Viola and Olivia and Orsino all fall in love with each other because of the way they talk and use language. I imagine it almost as language carving space and time - twisting the mesh of it to create an opportunity for an event to happen.  As a specific example, Olivia and Viola have a scene where they are playing tennis. Not literally, but they are lobbying each other’s words back and forth all the time. They’re very good at this. It is the first time they meet and they are talking about love - Orsino’s love and suddenly before they know it, they are bantering and Olivia is falling in love.

I used to watch the show “Californication” and a line in it resonates for me: “Talking leads to f*&^%$g.” These are a people for whom talking and language is sexy. They appreciate wit and humor – Olivia, even in the midst of her deep sadness keeps a fool to entertain her and lift her spirits.  While in rehearsal, Mark would caution me not to get too carried away with the language - not to go too fast in my excitement and joy of playing these word games because it might make the word play inaccessible to a modern audience unfamiliar with Shakespeare’s use of language. We also talked about Viola falling in love with Olivia - the lady playing my Olivia, Susan Kelechi Watson, is a divine, generous actress. And has a HUGE sense of fun - playing with her on stage I would sometimes forget that Viola has to keep Olivia at bay and not fall in love with her spirit. I do believe that Viola wishes she could give Olivia what she wants, but is unable to do so.

Speaking of being unable - the cannot instead of the will not - which is something our dramaturge Milla often talked about, I would like to talk about faith. And love as faith. 

Echoes of this resonate throughout the play. Orsino talks about his love as religion and 

Viola repeats this to Olivia who, perhaps sick of the severity of religion, being immersed in mourning and helped by a strict, moral steward, asks her to cast this aside and speak in her own words. Then, Olivia and Viola start engaging because of Viola’s language.  Her own language used after the mask of Orsino has been cast aside. And Olivia finds herself falling in love with this eloquent young boy.  Viola and Orsino are kindred spirits in a way because they both have a vision of love as faith, and keeping the faith even when things are not going their way.   

Mark would also caution me not to get so lost in the passion and fire of this faith, that I lost the lightness. Or to put it another way, he would say think of keeping the faith as being hopeful as well.

Rehearsals were quite a workout.  Since we were trying to work things out together, the staging, mood and intent of various scenes changed multiple times.  We went from the play being very dark - at the end all the couples come together but there is so much left unresolved that you don’t know how and if the couples are going to make it - (Olivia has actually fallen in love with Viola - will she be able to love Sebastian? Will Sebastian be able to live up to her expectations? How will Orsino and Viola work things out?) to more resolution.  The director talked a lot about Malvolio and his justifiable desire for revenge, but he cautioned that in Shakespeare’s time revenge plays were tragedies and plays about love were comedies. He also talked about vibrancy, how all these characters were full to the brim with life and feeling and thoughts.  He would often talk about being in a constant state of readiness - ready to laugh, cry or fall in love in an instant, and how as actors we should be wary of planting ourselves in scenes. 

Every day when I’m getting ready to go on stage I have to remind myself of this.  I consciously try to move my weight to the balls of my feet in an effort to stay alert, light, and present. My colleagues backstage are used to me dancing, jumping, picking up my feet like a trotting horse. To anybody unused to what we do, it would seem like strange behavior.  But what we do is strange and wonderful and alive making. I would not change it for the world.

Highlights of "Shakespeare In Our Time" at the Playhouse

October 11, 2011

by Angela Marroy Boerger

Education & Community Programs Coordinator

As Education and Community Programs Coordinator at the Playhouse, I work to create programs that support our mission by fostering conversations about theater, literature, and the deeper questions about living in our world that we hope the plays on our stage call forth. 

This past January, when we first started thinking through projects that we hoped to create over the course of 2011, we immediately knew that Twelfth Night, or What You Will, the last show of our season, would also provide an occasion for the largest number of education and enrichment events.  Over the course of the year, we’ve been hard at work creating a myriad of ways for people – theater-goers, students, teachers, and those who think of themselves as the uninitiated – to engage with the Bard.  The fruit of this work is a series of events we’ve termed Shakespeare In Our Time, a title which we hope communicates this essential truth:  that Shakespeare, though long-dead, is alive; that his works can be funny, hip, wrenching, and more; and that Shakespeare isn’t some crumbling relic in a museum, but is powerfully timely, today.

The programming we’ve developed as part of Shakespeare In Our Time aims to create inroads to dialoguing with Shakespeare.  For instance, we hosted two professional development workshops for teachers this fall, as we welcomed experts from the Folger Shakespeare Library (repository of the world’s largest collection of Shakespeare’s works) and The Acting Company (America’s foremost touring company of classical literature) to our campus.  Close to fifty teachers from across the region joined us at the two workshops to learn integrative teaching techniques for Shakespeare.  As oftentimes the first person to start a conversation with students about Shakespeare, teachers are an essential component of our mission to inspire engagement and discussion.

We’ve also developed a partnership with the Housatonic Community College Art and Theater programs, whereby their students have used Twelfth Night, or What You Will as the kernel of inspiration for their own artistic expression.  In each of their classes, whether from the standpoint of color theory, graphic design, computer-aided design, or poster design, students mined the text of Twelfth Night, or What You Will to find themes that spoke to them in inspiring the creation of their art.  A selection of these artworks are on display in the Playhouse lobby throughout the run of Twelfth Night, or What You Will.

One of the most personally rewarding aspects of my job at the Playhouse is my work to bring local students to our campus at a student matinee.  In conjunction with Twelfth Night, or What You Will and Shakespeare In Our Time, we are presenting five student matinees, where we hope to welcome close to three thousand students to our theater.  The atmosphere is positively electric when we have a house filled to the brim with students.  I can’t think of any other experience in our world where students so communally participate in an artwork.  Playing host to these student matinees is a gift that all of us at the Playhouse are honored to be a part of. 

Aside from the matinees themselves, we have also been hard at work producing an in-depth study guide and video introduction to Twelfth Night, or What You Will, which we are providing to all schools participating in the matinees.  The video guide contains commentary by Artistic Director Mark Lamos, who is directing the play, along with actors, designers, and other experts on Shakespeare’s text.  It aims to bring the wealth of knowledge of our creative team directly into the classroom, as well as provide an advance peek into the interpretation of our own production. 

This is just a sampling of the events included in Shakespeare In Our Time; please visit our website for a comprehensive list.  But in the meantime, I hope that our work will inspire you to start a conversation, that what we do is worth talking about.  I’ll see you at the theater!