"The Opposite of War"

One of my favorite lines is "La Vie Boheme" from the musical Rent by Jonathan Larson. Is goes: "The opposite of war isn't peace, it's CREATION."  I love this line for different reasons at different times. In fact I love the entire song (and musical) in varying degrees at different times. I've thought a lot about why I love this particular line and the conclusion I've come to is: I believe it.

War is conflict, right. Sometimes it's on a grand scale, worldwide. Sometimes it's on a small scale, sibling rivalry. Conflict. Why does conflict arise? There really isn't a single answer to that question. But one reason conflict arises is because of ignorance and intolerance. At times these things are paired, other times they are independent of each other. Either way they are terrifying attributes. The birth of so many conflicts. Bloody, heart wrenching, devastating conflict. Why is peace not the opposite of war? In my mind it's because of what has to happen for true creation. 

Creation, for me, is learning and growing. Creation is expressing the fire inside through various means.  When a person is learning and growing they are widening their scope of the world. They are looking at different people and seeing different things. They absorb new things, internalizing them for use in a future project or conversation or experience. By looking at new things they learn. When a person has a wider scope of the world their eyes are open to so much more.

The word I keep coming back to is differences. The more I learn about other's differences, more specifically WHY they feel the way they do, the less inlined I am to war against them. I can gain tolerance for things I do not understand or agree with when I can put a human face on it. It's easier to see two sides of the same issue when the dialogue is open and it doesn't contain hate. Communication is a powerful tool to avoid conflict. Honest and courteous communication.

For me creation comes from directing a show. I've said before it's about putting a picture together from pieces. It's also about telling a story. Sometimes I tell stories because I want to make people laugh. Sometimes I tell stories to make them cry. Sometimes I tell a story because I want them to understand, and even prescribe to, my way of thinking. I want them to leave my story changed in some small way. I want to teach them something.

I won't go into it in this post. I will only allude to my production of Jesus Christ Superstar. The story I am planning to tell is not to make you cry, or laugh although you may do one or both during the process, but to make you think. I approach it less at the re-telling of the story, but rather an examination of why stories like this happen. Over and over again in history.

Replacing the music in my head

Jesus Christ Superstar will be the third musical I've directed. My first was The Wizard of Oz with Hansen High School 11 years ago.  (Almost 12!!). My second was The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee just last fall.

Now I should have preluded that with the fact that I LOVE musicals. I grew up watching so many of the classics, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, My Fair Lady, The Sound of Music, The Pajama Game, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Fiddler on the Roof oh! I could go on and on with that list. And it doesn't even include the shows I listened to for years but didn't see a movie or performance. Les Miserables, Into the Woods, Evita, Phantom of the Opera...I love them. When my husband Jud and I started dating we had a very serious discussion about the validity of musicals.  He firmly believed that musicals were not to be taken seriously because they were not "realistic" in nature. The strongest argument he had was telling me: "people do NOT spontaneously burst out into song and dance around about what they're feeling." I was crushed. The very thing he was describing was something I DID. All the time.  When I gave him my feeble response of: "I do." His reply was simple, "Well, you're a crazy person."  Considering the fact that he STILL calls me a crazy person (with various inflections) after all this time I guess my brand of crazy is all right with him. In the meantime, we have spent years debating the merits of musical theatre over "straight" plays. My argument is that music touches a different part of the human emotion than just dialogue. I believe that's why musicals are so popular. They touch people deeply on several different levels.

So the point of all that was I'm very familiar with a great many musicals, old and new alike, but I haven't yet directed a great many of them. As part of my preparation for directing a show I do a tremendous amount of research. For both the musicals I have directed in the last year one of my first lines of research was listening to the recordings of the musical. I downloaded the cd's and plugged in and listened to them over and over again. Picking apart some things, tuning into others. I like to rearrange the tracks and listen to them out of sync and see what sounds different, what pops out to me. With the Putnam County Spelling Bee the WEEK we started rehearsals I stopped listening to the broadway recording. It's not because I didn't enjoy it, it's just that the actors working on my production were bringing their own insight and inflection to the show and I was enjoying the process so much that I wanted to focus on their way of singing.

Jesus Christ Superstar started rehearsals (slowly) this week meeting with some of the actors who have a solo song in the show. We kept it light because all three of the directing team (myself, Susanna, and Autumn) had other show commitments this past week. The three of us will be jumping from one show to the next. Susanna and I had the privilege to listen to Johanna Stagge (playing Mary), Brandon Tesch (playing Herod) and Dustin Hobdey (playing Judas) rehearse their songs. I don't want to listen to the cd I downloaded all those months ago. I want to listen to the actors we have cast create a sound and a character independent of what has been recorded. They are all doing their research too. Listening to different ideas, thinking about motives, talking about their feelings on the music and characters.

We get to start with the whole cast on Tuesday. I am so excited. The cast has had the rehearsal music for over a week. I know for a fact many of them have already been singing along. We are all so excited to bring this story to life. To tell this story in a way that hasn't been done before. Each of us striving to put our own mark, our own experience, thoughts and feelings to the characters that have been written into this show.  I have have such a good feeling about this show. Mark your calendars now. April 16, 17 and 18, 2015. At the Orpheum Theatre. Tickets will go on sale by mid-March.

Getting it out of my head

When I was considerably younger than I am now I truly thought that I would outgrow my passions. What I mean by that is I had days where I couldn't focus on anything but a project I was really excited about. I had days where everything, including school work and eating, fell to the wayside because I was so determined to get the ideas out of my head. The song that comes to mind is Anna Nalik's "Just Breathe". She talks about "if I get it all down on paper it's no longer inside of me, threatening the life it belongs to" (I think that's close to right). I think I assumed that someday I would lose that tendency. That it was something inside of me that was a result of immaturity or underdevelopment or youth and I should hang onto as long as I could because it would go away someday. I would grow up and be less creative, less intense, less artistic. I remember around the time I had my first child my mind was sluggish all the time. I read books and I watched movies, I even performed in plays but there was no fire in what I was doing. I think it's because at that particular time in my life my energies were so focused on motherhood and what that entails, my poor body and brain had no room for creative passion. Not that I'm complaining, I love raising kids (most of the time) and being a mom at all stages has fulfilled me beyond my imagining. My kids are older now and have fewer demands than when they were babies and toddlers. Artistically my experiences have magnified.
The point of all this is: I've done 2 projects in the last 12 months that I have worked on to distraction. In a way that makes me feel like 1 of 2 things is true...I haven't outgrown my creativity yet, or I never will. As to how I feel about those two things I cannot say at this point.
What does this have to do with Jesus Christ Superstar? Well, this is the second show I have directed that I did not choose. I was asked to direct this show. I don't mean to indicate that it was a hard sell for me to direct it. I was familiar with the show, in fact I worked tech on it when it was done in the Magic Valley in 1998. Some of the music I have kept tucked safely in my heart since then. I remember in recent years, (long before the thought of RAT producing this show entered into my sphere) I was going through a particularly difficult time and the song "Everything's All Right" popped into my head and wouldn't leave. "Try not to get worried, try not to turn on to, problems that upset you, no...Everything's All Right, yes Everything's fine.  So when I say I didn't choose this show I mean it's not on my "dream list" of shows to direct. After I agreed to direct it I followed my usual processes as a director. I started to research. I listened to several different recordings from the show, I watched countless videos on YouTube I read several articles about not only the show but the rather famous story it is based on from various resources. I thought about the show to distraction long before we even announced auditions. Now that we are "in it", now that our first cast meeting is tonight, I am so amped up with energy and ideas I feel like I'm going to explode. I don't know if I should warn my creative team and cast or just let them hop on and enjoy the ride...probably the latter. (Well I guess that's spoiled if any of them read my blog). Wow. I just re-read all of that and I feel a bit like a maniac. But it feels good to get it all down on "paper" so welcome to my crazy mind everyone. Mark your calendars to come see our latest venture. We will post regular updates here and on Facebook if you want to "hop on" in any way. April 16, 17 and 18 are the show dates. Downtown Twin Falls at the Orpheum Theatre. (I won't get STARTED on the amazing energy in THAT place today).

The Cast List

Jesus- Jared Johnson

Judas- Dustin Hobdey

Mary- Johanna Stagge

Pilate- Jud Harmon

Caiphas- Daniel Gardner

Annas- Taylor Twitchell

Peter- Ryan Terry

Simon- Quinn Fillmore

Herod- Brandon Tesch

Kids- Sophie King, Lisa Terry, Abbi Harmon, Isaac Harmon, Jaydyn Hopkins, Maia Malberg, 

Priest/Priestess- Paul Bowman, Rebecca Warwick

Apostles- Bekah Merrick, Kat Powell, Greg Malberg, Todd Carpenter, Courtney Ehrmantraut

Chorus- Curtis Hopfenbeck, Josie McDonald, Troy Cooper, Susanna Terry, Autumn Robinson, Ashley White, Sam Ramirez, Anne Loebs, Brianna Larson

Sound Technician- TJ Toynbee

Costumes- Mykell Walton

Audition night blog

Well...I hardly slept a wink last night. I've been thinking (sluggishly) about it all day and I don't know if having your brain  so consumed with thoughts about auditions and production you cannot sleep is a good thing...or a bad thing. At any rate the process started last night with child auditions (we still have a few spots to fill if you know someone who might be interested) and will continue tonight with adult auditions.
Auditions are always such an interesting energy. Of course nervousness comes into it, anticipation, preparation; it's exciting to be sure. Many times in a community this small there are familiar faces and camaraderie with the people auditioning. Most of all there is an incredible energy with the directing team. We love surprises (honestly, we do) and its always such a privilege to have people come out to try out for YOUR production. In RAT's early years we wouldn't always hold auditions because we knew we wouldn't have enough people come out so we spent our energy asking people to do the show instead of inviting them to try out. On rare occasions we will be producing a particular show with a particular actor in mind and thus will not open the auditions to everyone. More and more we find we have more than we need to fill the roles in a production. That's a blessing and a curse.
As a young actress I never truly understood the director's side of casting. I remember having hurt feelings because I didn't get a "big" role and on many occasions I failed to recognize a "great" role I had been given because it was smaller than the lead. I remember crying to the director about what was wrong with me and it wasn't fair. Having directed a few shows now I understand that casting a show can be as heartbreaking for a director as an actor. Hard decisions have to be made. For me casting a show is much like putting the pieces of a puzzle together. I have the image in my head of what I want and the actors are the pieces I must try and put together to create that image. In most cases it's not personal, it's combinations. I understand that now and I share that with anyone who has or will audition for a play in the future. Most of the time I see talent, but cannot use it all at the same time. Which is very hard for my tender heart. (I hide it well).
So, a few of the thoughts that were racing through my head last night. Building my picture without breaking too many hearts. Using the pieces that I'm given as efficiently and effectively as possible. Maintaining relationships I have with many of these actors and building new relationships with others. This show, and my "picture" of it which I will gladly share as we progress, is burning inside of me. It has grabbed a hold of my soul and my creative streak and I am excited and anxious to see what I can do with it. But first...auditions. The cast list will hopefully be announced publicly Wednesday this week.
Best of luck.
Tamara