5 Questions with playwright Charlayne Woodard

Stuart: You have had phenomenal success (LA Drama Critics Award, Outer Critics Circle Award, Drama Desk nominee, and two NAACP Awards) writing and performing your solo plays, PRETTY FIRE, NEAT, and IN REAL LIFE but FLIGHT is your first multi-character play. What were some of the joys and challenges of this transition?  

Charlayne:   FLIGHT was commissioned by Center Theatre Group in Los Angeles.  I was asked to adapt the Brer Rabbit tales.  I set about researching the tales, which led me to folktales and folklore  from Africa, the Caribbean, and the American South as well as slave narratives. This ‘Folklore Project’ afforded me the opportunity to direct the workshops and to explore new worlds.
My toughest challenge was to find five master storytellers to carry the evening.  I needed five actors with a visceral connection to the South and things southern.  They must use all the tools of the Griot – movement, music and the word.  Their vocal and physical life must be alive and kicking – able to go from place to place in a glance, changing from character to character on a dime. 

Stuart: Your solo work is very autobiographical and thus contemporary. FLIGHT on the other hand is set in the pre-Civil War South. What sparked you to write this story that takes place over two hundred and fifty years ago?

Charlayne:  I needed a reason to tell the folktales. American slaves used folktales to inform, to teach, to empower, and to entertain themselves.  They’d have storytelling sessions at weddings, funerals, and wakes – to celebrate births and to heal and comfort themselves when things went wrong. Children were taught manners and all the dos and don’ts of living in that dangerous world full of contradictions through stories.
Slave narratives told me exactly what life was like on a plantation.  So I asked myself, “What makes this night different from all the rest?”  All I had to do was choose an event.  I chose the most devastating event that could happen on the plantation. A family was torn apart.  A mother was sold for reading to her five year old son.  The entire community was shaken.  A healing was needed and it is done through a night of storytelling. 

Stuart: Music and storytelling are essential elements of the play. Why do they feature so prominently in these characters’ lives?

Charlayne:   The characters in FLIGHT tell stories the way I do in my solo plays.  They use the tools of the Griot.

Stuart: In addition to your solo work you have also had a long and varied stage, tv, and film career ranging from your Obie Award winning performance in Suzan Lori-Parks’ IN THE BLOOD to the film version of Arthur Miller’s THE CRUCIBLE with Daniel Day-Lewis (I was absolutely shaken by your interpretation of Tituba, by the way). How does your experience as an actor inform your writing?

Charlayne:   I am an actor who tells stories.  I write on my feet, in the moment of being and doing.  I can barely call myself a playwright, really.  Writing for me is…sensorial.

Stuart: Your next solo work premiering this July at LaJolla Playhouse is atmospherically titled THE NIGHT WATCHER. Who is the Night Watcher and what is s/he watching?

Charlayne:  I can’t tell you much about THE NIGHT WATCHER just now because I’m still creating it.  Nothing is definitive at this point.  She’s still in the incubator.  My first workshop was this past summer at the Ojai Playwright’s Conference.  I worked with Keith Bunin.  The next workshop is at the Lajolla Playhouse – From the page to the stage.  I will be working with Shirley Fishman and Robert Egan.

A Matter of Scale

Scenic Design Update:  Tony Ferrieri’s design is now moving from the rendering and model phase to being realized in our main-stage space.   I snapped a few photos today of the build in progress.  You’ll find them interspersed below.

If it is your first time visiting the Page to Stage blog, here is a tip –  you can view a larger version of the picture by clicking on the image.

The first step in this process was striking the previous set for Mat Smart’s charming 13th OF PARIS.  So, down came the Parisian cafe and funky Rue des Gobelins apartment once haunted by jaunty Jacques.  Next came a re-configuration of the audience seating.  In FLIGHT the audience will be arranged in a “thrust” configuration (audience on three sides of the stage). In order to achieve this, the first few rows of seats closest to the stage are removed, divided and reconfigured on either side of the stage.  This provides a much more intimate and dimensional relationship to the audience.  The last time the main-stage was in this configuration was for 2007’s THE MUCKLE MAN. In the theatre, the deck of the stage is being built and carved into an elegantly curved and multi-layered platform system.  While in the shop, layers of plasticor are hand-cut to create the semi-translucent layers of the tree that serves as the central image of the design.  

In the picture on the right, CJ and Patrick are doing the carving with oversight from Technical Director and political junkie, Paul Ford. 

Look for another update on the progress of the build soon.

6 Questions with Resident Scenic Designer, Tony Ferrieri

Stuart:  Tony, as City Theatre’s resident scenic designer you’ve designed an incredible number of shows. Do you even know the exact number?

Tony:  Actually, as a matter of fact, yes I do.  It took a little research but, including my design for FLIGHT, I have designed to date 424 productions with 136 of them for City Theatre.

Stuart:  What were some of the unique challenges of designing FLIGHT? Can you give us some insight into your design process with director Liesl Tommy?

Tony:  I think the biggest challenge of the scenic design for FLIGHT was to design a space that could be quickly transformed in a kind of magical way.  If the set were totally realistic, with a real tree and grass etc,  it would be very difficult to transform the space into the other places we are taken to through the stories being told.     

As the play begins we find these characters in a clearing in the woods under this huge pecan tree where this group of slaves likely gather, hidden from their masters.  But we then need to be transported, almost instantaneously, to all the places that are brought to life in the many stories that are told in the course of the play.  I also felt that the place we find them needed to be a bit of a scary place.  We find them in the woods in the middle of the night and as the play and the stories unfold we are brought from that scary dark place into a place of light and of hope.  

We also wanted to have a more neutral palette in the scenic design in order to allow the Lighting Designer, Marcus Doshi, to “paint” this neutral canvas with color, texture, and light.     

So, initially I did a lot visual research which actually started out with a very realistic approach to the set and through looking at that research Liesl and I came to the conclusion that a realistic set was not the best way to go.  We agreed that a more abstract set would allow us to more readily change our location and better draw the audience into the stories than a literal set.  So my task was to find a way to still have a tree and a clearing but abstracted.  So I again did further visual research but this time looking for images of abstracted trees and there was one  image to which both Liesl and I were drawn.  It had a sense of both the reality and of the magical that we were looking for. And that one image was the catalyst of my approach to the design. 

Stuart:  When we were chatting the other day you mentioned a desire to create a fairly subdued color palette for the scenic design.  Why are you leaning in this direction?  What does this do for the overall design?

Tony:   This ties into my ideas of a scary, dark, secret place transforming into a bright place that is full of light and hope.  All the vertical elements of the set will be constructed of a transparent material called Plasticor, which is a semi-transparent corrugated plastic–similar to corrugated cardboard.  The Plasticor material will then be layered with layers of tissue paper and a poly vinyl acrylic coating, which is basically like the process used in decoupage. Then those scenic elements will be painted with a series of very watery glazes of neutral colors.  This translucent material will allow the surfaces to be lit from the front to appear solid or to be lit from behind or from within to appear transparent, glowing, or even have a life of their own.   

Stuart:  How do you start the design process?  Does a central image come to you while reading the text and you create from there?  Do you wait for a discussion with the director?  How do you begin?

Tony:   Well I will, of course, first read the play several times.   I read first for content.  What is the “story” of the play?  What is the playwright trying to tell us or trying to say?  I then will read it strictly for scenic requirements, what does the playwright require be a part of the physical environment of the play; for example, a door here, a window there, etc.  Then I will read it strictly for prop and furniture requirements, what things do the characters use or handle, for example a stump or a walking stick.     

Next, I like to have a meeting with the director just to talk with them and see what their thoughts and ideas are about the play and the setting.  Then, hopefully, we are both on the same page!  If so, I then like for the director and me to both go away and do a bit of research.  This research could range from practical or historical research.   An example for FLIGHT was “What does a pecan tree look like?”  Or that research could consist solely of images that in some way speak to us about the play.  This could pertain only to line or color or feel and not be rooted in anything realistic.  I think images are the best reference point for design because an image will evoke an emotion or a feeling usually universally across the boards and that is basically what the set design needs to do for the audience. After the initial steps of reading the play and research are through, then it comes time to actually work on the design.  So taking the needs of the play and the feeling we wish to evoke, I will then begin.  I like to begin with the ground plan, a bird’s eye view of the physical space of the set.  I firmly feel that if you have a good solid workable ground plan you have won ninety percent of the battle.  The rest is icing on the cake.  Or as a carpenter recently said about my attention to details……….”it’s like throwing salt into the ocean.”  So you start with a good foundation then build the house.  Then it’s just a matter of fine tuning and clarifying all the details. 

Stuart:  Anything else you’d like to share with our blog readers?

Tony:   I would just like to say that I’m very excited to be designing and  working on Flight.  I think it is a piece with heart and an exploration into the resilience of the human condition.  I guess I’m an old softy but I like the plays with heart!  

Stuart:  Finally, what’s on your ipod?

Tony: As far as music, well it has been either the musical score from THOU SHALT NOT or I’m listening to my usual radio station, WJAS 1320 AM, which plays basically “old standards.” I’ve been told by several people I am an “old soul”? I haven’t decided whether this is a good or bad thing.

City Theatre enters the Blogosphere

Hello, World!

Stuart Carden here, City Theatre Company’s new Associate Artistic Director. As Charlayne Woodard’s play takes FLIGHT at City Theatre we are simultaneously launching our new PAGE TO STAGE blog.

This weekly blog gives audience members a behind-the-scenes look into our design labs, scene shop and rehearsal halls as City Theatre’s artistic and production staff transforms a new script into a fully realized production.

Beginning with surprising insights into the text from the artistic staff the blog provides weekly updates from directors, designers, playwrights and actors as the play moves from conceptual conversations, research and renderings, to the intrigues of the rehearsal hall, and finally to the excitement of Opening Night.

And once the show opens you’ll hear from the actors about their process as they hit the boards each week. Check in often as each show will be a unique glimpse into of how City Theatre moves from PAGE TO STAGE.