What an apt way to finish this evening’s rehearsal, huddled together, our first night on the set, singing “Blow, Blow Thou Winter Wind” while outside the bitter winds whited-out the icy roads. One of the themes of AS YOU LIKE IT is that the world of Nature, while harsh and rough at times, is more honest and pure than the cut-throat world of men. That in Nature we find a sacred space where we can seek the eternal and meaningful. Almost all of the characters in the play escape to the Forest of Arden during the play, fleeing persecution, tyranny or ill-fortune. In the forest they find solace, rejuvenation, new perspectives, new identities and (of course) Love.

The exiled Duke Senior has a beautiful speech that introduces us to the forest. Not to give anything away but I think it can only help to know this one beforehand:

Now, my co-mates and brothers in exile,
Hath not old custom made this life more sweet
Than that of painted pomp? Are not these woods
More free from peril than the envious court?
Here feel we but the penalty of Adam,
The seasons’ difference, as the icy fang
And churlish chiding of the winter’s wind,
Which, when it bites and blows upon my body,
Even till I shrink with cold, I smile and say
‘This is no flattery: these are counsellors
That feelingly persuade me what I am.’
Sweet are the uses of adversity.
And this our life exempt from public haunt
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones and good in every thing.
I would not change it.

Here is a man who has had his dukedom usurped by his own brother, who had to flee to the forest after living in a palace, and these are the thoughts he shares with his compatriots.

Like I said, everyone in this play flees to the woods at some point and there they find lives more enduring, more vital than what they had known before. One of the things I embraced early on was our director’s idea that everyone, even the long-term residents of the forest, fled from somewhere. This place unites all who come to it because it serves as a sanctuary for them all. I play a shepherd (Corin) who has lived here longer than anyone else we encounter. This idea that at some point I fled something and came to the Forest of Arden was very powerful for me. I could go into great depth about the history I have created for Corin, but what I really want to point out is that this idea brought me to the revelation that Corin chose to be here. Chose this life specifically. He could have moved on, gone somewhere else, maybe even returned home, but the forest became his home and he has embraced this life. This opened up a deep well of meaning beneath the lines that Corin speaks and connected me to my character. Part of bringing a play off the page and to life is finding those notes that resonate, when the words you have to speak become the only possible words to use for that person. When you come upon one of those notes you know it because it echoes in your bones and everyone stops whatever else they are doing and looks. Ultimately we are arranging a series of resonant notes, making a song of moments and connections that fuel the poetry and open up a space for life to happen.

Sitting around on our stage for the first time tonight we all found a resonant note. While the winter wind raged outside we were finding something eternal, enduring and vital here in our space, in our theater, in our Forest of Arden.

The MLK Project: The Fight for Civil Rights has now been on tour for a week and a half. Each time, each audience, each place carries with it different challenges, rewards and lessons. As Community Liaison, it is my job to facilitate the entire experience for the students and teachers. Part of this entails the post-show dialogue. It is my belief that the discussion that happens after the play is just as vital as the show and it is the hope of Writers’ Theatre hope that this dialogue is progressive, probing and challenging.

To be honest I came into this position with a bit of nervousness and hesitation. I have confidence in my skills as a facilitator and I believe in the programming. However, I knew it was not going to be easy. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to walk into schools and, in a twenty-minute discussion, explore the entirety of relevance of the Civil Rights Movement, or the presence of discrimination and other social problems in America today.

I have also been forced to confront my own identity in this work. I am a white woman. Many of the schools I walk into are predominantly African-American. And so I am the “other” in the room. At one school last week this was particularly apparent. When asking what students could do to help end discrimination, a girl replied something to the affect, “It will stop when they stop sending white people to talk to us about it.”

This is a challenge. And it is one that is important to be open and honest about with the community and myself. Behind it needs to be understanding. Yes, my presence when talking about the Civil Rights Movement can continue to open wounds and can continue to prompt defensiveness. But I also believe that it is important that I am in this role as an ally. It is important that students see and hear someone who is different. We progress nowhere if we tiptoe around issues, if we pretend that we have risen above problems of discrimination, or if we belief that only those with similar identities can confront today’s problems.

Our world today is still very much in need of change. This project has continued to illuminate to me that we are still living in a time of prejudice, discrimination, and hate crimes. We are living in a city that is still segregated among communities. It is my personal belief that the education system is where change must begin. And it is through progressive programming and dialogue that this will be enabled to happen.

There are no quick fixes. And change does not come easy. But it is my hope that when I leave a school after having brought The MLK Project there, at least one student has began to think differently, at least one student has opened their mind slightly wider, at least one student will leave and seek out this conversation beyond the walls of the theatre. And I do think this happens with every performance.

I want to end by sharing with you a few other comments from students in the past week. The first is from a young, white male who attended a performance at the Winnetka Women’s Day Club. He voiced aloud that his community prides itself on being open-minded and liberal; and yet prejudice still exists, everywhere, whether we chose to admit it or not. The next day at a school on the south side a sixth grade, African- American male student said that “discrimination is a global issue […] it still happens today every where […] and we can only bring peace to others, if we have peace in our own hearts.” This last comment came from a fifteen year-old African-American girl, “Young people need to be educated. They need to be able to talk about these issues openly. It is something that affects everyone, and we need to learn and talk with others and ourselves so that it can begin to be better.”

It is these voices that continue to speak to me. These words that continue to leave me hopeful. It is these words that speak to Martin Luther King’s dream.

Welcome to Writers’ Theatre’s new website. Our goal is to create a dynamic, interesting experience for you that helps you keep up with what’s going on at the theater and also brings you closer to the work on our stages. Take a look around and please let us know what you think!

I cannot tell you how happy I am to be sitting around the table with this amazing group of people. I’m still a relative newcomer to the world of paid professional theater and I don’t often find myself in shows where we have the luxury of table-work sessions before we get on our feet. Table-work is a fairly unimaginative term for a very imagination-centered activity. As a whole ensemble we sit around and go through the script with the scrutiny of a forensic investigator while still keeping our creative ears open for the unintentional (but deeply appreciated) ricochets of inspiration and revelation. We take the time to weigh the words and explore the various possibilities that they suggest. We make decisions about our characters and their relationships and we start to define the world of the play that we are about to inhabit. Of course we also take a few scenic roads and detours on our journey as we riff on how the play’s themes relate to our present world, or get enjoyably entangled in the minutia of stress or punctuation. Personally I seem unable to keep my mouth shut in theses cases and I easily get swept up in the discussion, which fascinates me completely. Luckily we always end up back on track and often with a new insight or idea to try out.

At this point I have to confess that I am a little in awe of the rest of my cast. I am working with people who I have been watching and admiring for years and I feel a bit like a rookie who suddenly gets called up to the Cubs and finds himself sharing a dugout with his heroes. I must look like a goofball because I just sit there with a huge smile on my face basking in the conversation. Luckily I do have one thing going for me, I’m playing a shepherd in the play and I am reasonably sure I am the resident shepherding expert considering I did that for a year after high school. So for now I’m going to keep my eyes and ears open to the great work going on around me and just make sure I’m ready for some sheep-shearing if it comes up.

Dear Friends:

Welcome to the Writers’ Theatre blog.

It has always seemed to me that intimacy, as we define it in our mission, is not merely a function of space but rather the entire approach to our programming. Because everything that we do is focused towards providing you with a direct relationship to the art on and around our stages, intimacy must breathe in every area of our organization. We seek to provide our artists with an experience that allows them to directly impact the productions on our stages. The engagement of the Board of Trustees with our organizations results in a visceral, direct impact upon the company. We offer our donors opportunities to enjoy real-time, backstage, up-close and personal observations of the artistic process. And we strive to offer all of our patrons a personal and distraction-free interaction with the plays on our stages.

It makes sense then that we should also blog.

Here, on this website, we can and will engage you in direct interaction with our artists and staff. We’ll give you an opportunity to ask questions you’ve always wanted to ask and to read about the creative process from the perspective of the artists and staff members who are taking the words on the page and realizing them on the stage.

On my personal entries, I’ll occasionally share thoughts and observations from my travels, theatrical viewing, culinary experiences, film and television observations and my own process as artistic director.

Your comments will generally be posted unedited. I will gently point out however, that because we are committed to providing our artists with a safe and nurturing environment, we’ll refrain from posting personal attacks on them of course, but you’re welcome to share your thoughts about our productions whether they were to your taste or otherwise.

If you’ve never posted to a blog before, consider telling us what you liked about a show, when you were engaged or where you were confused. Feel free to ask us a question about our process or a programming choice. Make suggestions for programming you’d like to see…. You get the idea!

So what are you waiting for? Let the posting begin.

Yours,
Michael