Director's Lab West: Day 1

Its been a very exciting first day down here in Pasadena. Aside from the LA heat (which of course I'm not prepared for at all - I wore a flannel shirt on the first day) and feeling like I just chain smoked a pack of cigarettes due to the smog, I am invigorated by the fact that there are 30 + directors in a room, not vying for a position, but rather engaging in a bold and ardent discussion about what is theatre and what is directing and even more importantly the different models of how we are going about it doing those things.  People ranging from local in LA to San Francisco to Brazil to London are sharing ideas and quatsching which doesn't happen nearly enough between directors.
The day started with the motto of the Director's Lab West: "I am the future of American theatre." Well, while being a very inspirational motto, it doesn't take into account the fact that as directors we face an uphill battle against the prevailing system of theatre creation: a solo playwright in a room typing away.  For many people (in fact I would argue for most) this is generally the tried and true way of creating theatre and why would one want to change what works; as a playwright recently said at the Theatre Bay Area conference, "theatre is a playwright's medium."
Now we know that there are more ways to create that and I felt the excitement and the surge of energy during a panel that featured artistic directors of various companies that were based primarily in "devised work." As the panelists and the room full of directors grappled with trying to define what is this elusive thing called "devised work" and how do we talk about it and its relationship to the dominant form of theatre creation, I started to realize that we directors in the "devised work" have a publicity problem especially in a system that desires repeatability and predicatability . The forms of creating work that differs from a solo playwright is so varied and intricate that truly, as one of the panelists stated, "the art is the whole process." From a four-headed playwright model to the movement based work that is built around an idea through multiple exercises (as in the case of Mugwumpin), the methodologies are so disparate it is little wonder that most companies shy away from this work because of its inherent ability to fail. But companies must embrace these form of creation because as we start bringing the work to the people instead of the people coming to the work as we generate work that makes everyone a participate, everyone a collaborator, we will staunch the "theatrical hemophilia," because it is through failure that we generate art, that we create new ways of thinking about things. As the AD of Pasadena Playhouse, Sheldon Epps, stated quite rightly, "If its going to fail, fail boldly. With strength, aggression."
Aside from the devised work panel, Sheldon Epps, came and had a one on one session with the group in which he talked about his path to becoming an artistic director. There were several things that really struck me in his conversation with us:

• "Everything we do in theatre is based on faith." Then a little while later, "As the leader is falls to you to sustain the faith even when your own faith falters." Faith between a director and an actor, AD and director, director and the designer, faith abounds. We really have to trust each other and work from our instinct. Instinct about a person's passion.
• "Art is great. But you can't create art dead." The relationship between making money and art. According to Mr. Epps, there is nothing wrong with box office sales. Its a barometer of effect on an audience.
• Say no to create the work you want to be making.
• Build a Socratic atmosphere within the rehearsal room to make actors and designers (though he was particularly quiet about designers) feel valued, safe, and respected.

All in all a very full day of talking about theatre and then watched a period costume/living room drama in the evening. I'm very excited that we are going to be watching shows almost every day!

More to come tonight or tomorrow morning!