The sun is going down on an unseasonably warm Los Angeles day. There are mere moments of daylight left as it creeps its way down a hill that hosts the Ford Amphitheater. There’s a soft breeze wafting through the [Inside] the Ford patio area where set designer Danny Cistone is busy measuring and cutting wood.
Just inside the theater, director Ron Klier and production stage manager and assistant director Tommy Dunn are sitting back in their chairs watching actors Johnny Clark and Michelle Clunie ever so convincingly play a couple knee-deep in a clandestine affair. In the scene each actor is passionately trying to get his/her points across. And just before Clark and Clunie shift into another gear, Klier yells, “Ok, that’s it, we’ll stop here.”
Neil LaBute photo by Aaron Eckhart
This is a rehearsal for The Mercy Seat, Neil LaBute’s caustically funny examination of opportunism in the wake of tragedy, set to have its Los Angeles premiere March 19, presented by Vs. Theatre Company.
Set on Sept. 12, 2001, in a downtown Manhattan loft, the play goes inside the relationship of Ben and Abby, who have an unusual option on what to do with their affair. On the previous day, Ben, who was scheduled to have a meeting in the World Trade Center (WTC), instead stopped off to see Abby, who also happens to be his boss. While they are in the heat of passion, the first plane hits one of the towers. Ben sees this tragedy as a way to change his life. Convinced his family thinks he died in the towers, Ben must weigh the option of going back to his life or riding off into the sunset with Abby and saying goodbye to his marriage, his job and his home. However, Abby is not so quick to get on that horse. For her, it’s the perfect time to evaluate their relationship.
The question set before Ben, Abby and those who are watching the show is, “If you saw a now-or-never chance to leave your spouse for your lover, no strings attached, would you take it?”
LaBute offered his own description of the play. “Set on Sept. 12, 2001, The Mercy Seat attempts to examine the ‘ground zero’ of our lives…the painful, simplistic warfare we often wage on the hearts of those we profess to love.”
The play, which premiered at New York’s MCC (Manhattan Class Company) Theater in 2002, so intrigued Clark he waited years to perform the role of Ben. About six years ago Klier brought the play to Clark’s attention. Clark says Klier “desperately” wanted to direct The Mercy Seat. “He said he would kill to direct it. However, he said I was too young to play Ben at the time.”
Johnny Clark
Although Clark, 34, got turned down several times for the rights to the play, he never gave up hope. “I didn’t give up because Vs. does premieres of the best contemporary plays from the best playwrights in America,” says Clark, who is co-artistic director of Vs. Theatre Company with Kimberly-Rose Wolter. “Sometimes it’s very difficult to get the rights to things we’re crazy about. I was still in my 20s when we were turned down. After every positive review we would get from our previous productions, I would send them to the agent, but he kept saying no.”
Finally, Clark enlisted the help of a friend who knew the playwright. “LaBute told me to email him,” remembers Clark. “I e-mailed him a straight-from-the-heart letter about how much it meant to me and the company. He said I wrote a great letter. He said, ‘The Geffen has the rights but if they are not doing it, you can have it.’ They weren’t doing it. He said, ‘The play is yours. One thing I ask is, don’t fuck it up.’”
GETTING THE RIGHT ABBY
Taking to heart LaBute’s plea not to mess up his play, Clark next set out to find the perfect actress to play Abby in this two-hander. “When it came to finding our Abby, we got lucky,” says Clark. “I hired a casting director, Scott David, who casts Criminal Minds. He searched far and wide and saw 50-60 actors. Michelle came in the second or third day. She walked in and I was hoping she could act. Ron and I both nodded. She was far and away the best person for the job. Now that we’ve been rehearsing for six weeks, it’s clear she’s an amazing person. She’s ballsy, gutsy and leaves it out there every rehearsal.”
Michelle Clunie, 41, is best known for her role as Melanie Marcus on Queer as Folk, a Showtime drama about gay relationships. After auditioning for Klier and Clark, Clunie was eager to get the role. “It felt good,” she says. “It felt right. It was a great script. After reading it, I knew who she was and what was happening. For an actress that’s gold. When I have gold, I start firing on all cylinders. If you get a Neil LaBute play, run, don’t walk to do it.”
Clunie says she and Clark bonded immediately. “We have that artistic soulmate kind of chemistry,” says Clunie, who calls Klier and Clark her “two angels. We immediately started finding our rhythm.”
GETTING TO THE ART
Michelle Clunie
Clunie became serious about acting while still a teenager. At 19, she studied acting with film director and Hollywood acting coach Milton Katselas. She credits him with teaching her everything she knows. “My 20s made me an actor,” says Clunie. “By 25, I was on a series. My 30s made an artist out of me.’
Some of her credits include The Jeff Foxworthy Show, Make It or Break It and numerous guest star and recurring roles. She won a Drama-Logue Award for A Comedy of Eros and a best supporting actress award at the Breckenridge Film Festival for the indie Leaving Barstow. She has toured with The Vagina Monologues and recently finished writing her first play, Transcending Maggie.
Clunie, who grew up in Portland but moved to Los Angeles when she was 18, is currently living a bi-coastal life, often traveling between New York and Los Angeles for work. She was fairly familiar with LaBute’s work prior to getting the role of Abby.
“I knew who he was,” she says. “I had been tracking him all these years. It wasn’t as though I had read all of his plays. I don’t know him personally, I’m sure he’s a fascinating person. I get the sense that this feels like his heart. I could be wrong but I feel there is a lot of romance on these pages.”
Although Clunie is best known for her work on television, she is enamored with the stage. “There is nothing like the theater,” she says. “I like the process. I like discovering the character. I like the journey from A to B. I love being inside a role. You hook yourself up to the character and the character into you. I learn more about me being someone else.”
For Clunie, working on this show is like hitting the trifecta. She likes the material, the director and her co-star. “Whatever I give Johnny, he gives it back to me,” she says. “It always amazes me how in sync he is. It was there at the beginning.”
CLARK’S FIRST ACT
Clark, who was born in Chicago but grew up in Miami, studied economics and graduated from the University of Chicago. Initially he had no desire to go into acting. He had a successful career in finance, working in venture capital for six years on Wall Street. However, it was not a fulfilling gig.
“I was miserable,” says Clark, who went to college at 16 and graduated at 20 because he had skipped from the first grade to the fourth. “I was working 80-90 hours a week. I had no passion for the job at all.” Fast-forward a year. Clark lost “a stupid sports bet” to a friend regarding a Lakers game — and as a result, had to sign up for an improv class. He took the class and “loved it.”
“I got my first laugh,” he adds. “I thought, ‘This is good.’” After studying improv, he signed up for acting classes. “It was then I decided I had a knack for this,” he says. “I moonlighted as an actor but still did the corporate thing.” He worked in production at E Entertainment for seven years. Clark and his wife Amy Clark are parents of four-year-old Callum and two-year-old Truman.
Wolter and Clark started Vs. Theater Company seven years ago. Some of Clark’s stage credits include The Credeaux Canvas, Modern Dance for Beginners, Navy Pier, Beggars in the House of Plenty, Waste of Shame, Eric LaRue and Blackbird, for which he received an Outstanding Actor nomination from the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle.
Vs. Theatre Company was recently named “one of the top theater companies of the last decade” by the LA Weekly. The company has produced or co-produced major contemporary playwrights such as John Patrick Shanley, Stephen Adly Guirgis, John Kolvenbach, Adam Rapp and more. The Vs. co-production of In Arabia We’d All be Kings with the Elephant Theatre Company was named one of the two Outstanding Productions in 2007 by the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle. Vs. followed up with On an Average Day, which was produced in Los Angeles and Chicago, received Critic’s Choice in both the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune. Today the company does one or two plays a year.
Wolter is proud of the company’s progress, direction and accomplishments, but she also likes it for a personal reason. “I wanted to start the theater company because I don’t like waiting for people to tell me yes,” says Wolter. “I don’t like waiting.”
BEING DIRECT
Johnny Clark and Michelle Clunie photo by Darlene Donloe
Clark, Clunie and Wolter have nothing but good things to say about Klier, who is a writer, a founding member, the literary director and resident director for Vs. Theatre Company. Some of Klier’s credits include the West Coast premiere of Bekah Brunstetter’s Happy Birthday/I’m Dead at the Elephant Theatre; the West Coast premiere of Brett Neveu’s Eagle Hills, Eagle Ridge, Eagle Landing at the Hayworth Theatre; and John Kolvenbach’s On an Average Day for Vs. in Los Angeles and Chicago.
“Ron has directed three or four shows for us,” says Clark. “We refer to him as the true brains of the operation. He’s that rare person who doesn’t have an ego about the work.”
“I like that he’s very collaborative,” says Wolter. “He looks at material as both a director and an actor. He likes to have an open dialogue with actors. He’s really like our silent partner.”
“He is an intelligent and fierce intellect and a master of the text,” says Clunie. “He knows if I’m off because he brings his heart into what’s going on. I’d put him up with the top three directors I’ve ever worked with. The three of us have a cone of safety and truth. You need that. I need that. You don’t always get that.”
The Mercy Seat, presented by Vs. Theater Company, opens March 19; plays Wed.-Sat., 8 pm; Sun., 2 pm; through April 24. Tickets: $12-$20 (Wed., Pay-What-You-Can). [Inside] the Ford, 2580 Cahuenga Blvd. East, Hollywood; 323.461.3673 or FordTheatres.org.
