All this week LA Stage will present coverage of Directors Lab West 2010 with reports from DLW Steering Committee Associate Producer Cindy Marie Jenkins, Production Coordinator Rachel Jenkins and DLW intern Doug Oliphant. Each year the Lab chooses a theme around which all their sessions are based and a play around which many group workshops are organized. For 2010 the theme is “Balance” and the play Measure for Measure. Click here to view all DLW 2010 updates.

Cindy Marie Jenkins

Sunday, Sept. 5

DESIGNING A BALANCE

Panel: Holly Poe Durbin, Christian Epps, Cricket Myers, Sibyl Wickersheimer

Moderator: Brendon Fox

“I’m very stern about feeding my image bank.” -Holly Poe Durbin

Our holiday got a running start thanks to four very talented and busy designers. Topics ranged from balancing a freelance design career with family life, broadened and sometimes “inappropriate use of influences,” as Epps terms them, schedules, personalities and rhythms of shows. One amazing conversation developed about the use of time in rehearsals and how the stop-and-start method honestly does very little to aid lighting and sound designers’ process. Directors in the room questioned our panel on what they can do to help which sparked another fascinating topic: stage managers. Bringing them into your creative zone so they can adequately and seamlessly call your show was the conclusion. A few other topics included the usefulness of side-coaching when designers see an early rehearsal, how boring our panel find realistic plays (“doorbells and birds chirping” for Myers and “tea and chairs” for Durbin) as well as wonderful revelations to how designers strike creative balance with much-needed inspiration. Myers travels out of town, out of the country and sits down to pay attention to the sound, the unconscious background we tend to ignore. Wickersheimer distilled what everyone tried to say: “Please stop doing theatre for just a few minutes and do something else.”

BALANCING ON THE CORNERSTONE

Speaker: Michael John Garces

Moderator: Ann-Giselle Spiegler (DLW ‘03)

“..engaged in an aesthetic conversation with the world” -Michael John Garces

Inspiration, creativity and cool: that’s the impression one gets from Michael John Garces, Artistic Director of Cornerstone Theater Company. Garces loves what he does and shares his journey compellingly. Detailing the great history of the Cornerstone ensemble and dispelling myths about their process of consensus, it’s hard to believe he wasn’t made for this job. Deeply respectful of his staff, ensemble and community, Garces fielded questions ranging from the minutiae of how such an ensemble works, to working with a combination of trained and untrained actors, to replacing Founding Artistic Director Bill Rauch, how to hold an aesthetic conversation with local communities and the brave nature of Cornerstone’s playwrights “having a conversation when you don’t know what the outcome is going to be.” He ended by conducting wonderful exercises in Story Circles, which truly must be experienced firsthand.

BALANCING ARTISTIC VISION

Conversation: Jessica Kubzansky, Michael Michetti

Moderator: Ernest Figueroa

“to harness the collective imagination” -Jessica Kubzansky

Sharing a Co-Artistic Directorship at The Theatre @ Boston Court should be a difficult balance to strike. Kubzansky and Michetti make that part look easy. It’s the rest of their work that’s hard. They described their working relationship, how it translates to outside directing and the various ways they sort through artists’ dream projects to find the right season for their theatre; after all, “a season tells its own story,” as Kubzansky said. Maybe it’s their friendship and respect for one another as well as their staff that allows Kubzansky and Michetti to open the door into a pretty gruesome and heart-wrenching world of running a theatre in these times, including how to reach new audiences, sustain one-timers, approach co-productions in a healthy way that satisfies the needs of both companies, the importance of introducing children to theatre early and often, and the balance of staying true to their mission vs. staying within budget. This conversation is one no one present will soon forget. Labbies exited buzzing with ideas, debates, inspiration, the feeling that true artistic partnerships can weather any storm and conversation: kind of like exiting The Theatre @ Boston Court itself.

Alan Menken, Glenn Slater and Jess Bard

TAKING A LEAP OF FAITH

SDC Open Session

Discussion: Alan Menken, Glenn Slater

Moderator: Jess Bard

“It’s so easy to start a musical and so hard to finish it” – Alan Menken

Every year SDCFoundation and Directors Lab West host an open session for all SDC members and Lab Alumni. This year brought two very special guests in Menken and Slater. Cramming their discussion into a busy week of rewrites and technical rehearsals leading up to the first preview of Leap of Faith at the Ahmanson, all sat rapt in front of these artists. Detailed discussions on collaboration, writing musicals for theatre then movies- -and then back again– the glorious descriptions of their work together and painful truths on process certainly inspired the directors and choreographers in the room. Menken and Slater were very blunt when reviewing their repertoire, both the hits and the less popular fare. The entire evening revealed a delicate and complex love for their craft. As Slater would go into great detail on why a certain number in The Little Mermaid had to be moved to a different place in the story, you could see Menken staring into the creative space between the work as it stands and how it might still be fixed. They prefer a director early in the process, both stated, especially one with great vision and as much desire to obtain perfection as this composer and lyricist have themselves. Bringing your own coffeemaker would probably be a good idea, too, as Menken and Slater exited LATC as quickly as they appeared, almost surely to go back and work on Leap of Faith.

Feature image: Sibyl Wickersheimer, Christian Epps, Cricket Myers, Brendon Fox and Holly Poe Durbin

Directors Lab West is a unique forum which brings Theater Directors together with peers and seasoned professionals for an opportunity to collaborate and grow together as artists. Directors Lab West is modeled after the Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab in New York City. Like its NY counterpart, the Lab is a series of discussions, working sessions, panels and symposia with some of the nation’s and region’s leading directors, playwrights, designers and other theatre practitioners. DirectorsLabWest.com