December 9, 2024 • 27 mins
Peter Green's journey is inspiring. He reveals the profound impact that the performing arts can have on individuals and communities alike. His story is a testament to the power of art in building connections and fostering a sense of belonging. Join us as Peter shares how his initial desire for validation evolved into a deeper pursuit of communion with audiences, highlighting the healing and unifying potential of theatre.
We discuss the importance of intentional kindness in theatre, the challenges of power dynamics, and even muse about how political leaders could benefit from such transformative experiences. This episode shines a light on how theatre can serve as a sanctuary for connection and empathy, offering a refreshing escape from our screen-dominated world.
Thanks for listening.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
This is Creativity GGG with Chris McHale.
Today we are talking to PeterGreen, a good friend, a social
worker, a school counsellor, atherapist and what I believe is
an integral part of his life.
A community theatre director isan integral part of his life.
A community theatre director.
Peter rolls all his empathyinto a big ball of cotton and
(00:29):
wraps the artists who work withhim in the community into a
beautiful patchwork quilt ofemotional and generous
performances.
When we started to think aboutthe crazy town state of the
world, we began to think whatcan we do?
We started to think about Peterand his devotion to the shared
art of community theatre.
Let's meet him.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
I first met Peter at a party on the Upper West Side,
which was a lot of years ago.
He was an IT guy when I firstmet him.
Then he went into sales,production sales, selling
production companies to theadvertising schools, helping
(01:25):
young people.
And there's been a long journeyfor Peter Green, but there's
been a spine of his journey allalong which is a love and a
passion for community theaterwhich he shared with his wife,
karen Zakes, and the two of thembecame very entrepreneurial and
(01:46):
very active in communitytheater and to me their embrace
of community theater was takingthe essence of what theater
actually is and shaping it andusing it as a community
buildingbuilding healing tool.
(02:06):
That's the way I saw their workand I wanted to ask Peter how
he got from where I first methim as an IT guy to where he is
now.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
God, how do I even begin?
I'll begin like this.
If you ask me how I identifymyself at this stage of my life,
which is sort of far along, youknow I'm pushing 70.
I would say that I'm aperforming artist.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
As a kid as a little kid, earliest memories I wanted
to be an actor and you know, Ithink that we I don't know if
it's genetic that we're artistsor something else I know that my
reason for wanting to be anactor as a little kid was all
about being looked at and beingvalidated and being, you know,
adulation and getting laughs andapplause and all that stuff.
(02:57):
And I think many of us who takethis path discover, as we learn
our craft and as we deepen ourconnection to creativity, that
our reasons for wanting to dowhat we do go, you know, 180
really radically altered.
It's been a long time since Ihave felt that the reason for
(03:22):
wanting to be an artist wasbecause I wanted something from
an audience.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Right.
What does that mean?
Exactly?
Speaker 3 (03:29):
Well, I think that what I want to now is to share
something with an audience.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
If I want something from an audience, it's communion
.
It's not validation.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
I got you, I understand.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
And I'll just say one more thing about the genetic
idea One of my acting teachers,the person who was my advisor
through college I had aconversation with her years
later and I had gone to aconservatory and she said that
she thought that artists werethe descendants of the hunters
(04:03):
and gatherers, not the agrarians.
And what we're hunting for, ofcourse, is impressions and
connection.
So I feel like that's thebackground I need to say before
I start this.
So here's where the story getsinteresting.
I guess it's also where thestory gets religious.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
You say religious.
Speaker 3 (04:27):
Yeah, I did.
I got invited to be a youthadvisor at a Unitarian retreat,
a week-long conference forreligious educators, on an
island called Star Island, whichis a beautiful and haunting
place 11 miles off the coast ofPortsmouth, New Hampshire.
And at the end of the week, onthe last morning, I attended a
theme talk by this person whowas the minister that week, a
brilliant speaker, theologian,minister, writer, a woman named
(04:52):
Nancy Crumbine the right way, byNancy Crumbine, who was up in
New Hampshire and who I revereto this day, and she was talking
about universalist theology, sounitary universalism, those are
merged denominations.
And the question she asked wasif you had no shame, if there
(05:17):
was no reason to be ashamed, ifeverything about you was
entirely acceptable both to youand to all of existence, what
would you do with your life?
I was on the train, my littlecommuter train, one night
(05:40):
reading.
We used to have these thingscalled newspapers that you could
read on the train.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
Oh yeah, I heard about those.
Speaker 3 (05:45):
Yeah, and in the back of it, they used to have these
things called newspapers thatyou could read on the train.
Oh, yeah, I heard about those,yeah, and then the back of it,
they used to have these littleads, like they called them,
classified ads.
Oh, wow, yeah, that's how wefound stuff.
So I'm reading this newspaper,I'm putting quotes around it
because it's such a relic idea.
I'm reading this newspaper andI see a classified ad in the
back that's a casting notice fora community theater production
(06:07):
of Glenn Gary, glenn Ross, at atheater in White Plains.
And I walk into my house andthere's my lovely wife and my
lovely kids and the you know,like just all this bustle and
activity.
It's dinner time and I lookedat my wife and I said it's
dinner time.
And I looked at my wife and Isaid I think I want to go play.
And she said go play.
(06:29):
So I went and auditioned.
I don't want to feel veryemotional about this right now.
It's funny.
Yeah, it's an emotional story.
I went and auditioned and,because I had once upon a time
been as trained as I had beenand had done as much theater as
I had done, I walked into thataudition knowing what I knew and
knowing that I knew what I knew, like it was all there, right,
(06:53):
and I auditioned and I got therole of Ricky Romo, which is the
Joe Mantegna part, the Pacinopart, I get you know.
It's the he's sort of theanti-hero of the piece.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
And I felt like I'd come home.
But I don't think of myself asan actor anymore, although I'm
comfortable on stage.
I think of myself as an actoranymore.
Although I'm comfortable onstage, I think of myself as a
performing artist.
And whether I'm doing whetherI'm directing or I do a lot of
(07:32):
sound design and or if I'mrunning a board you know a
soundboard or if I am beinghouse manager and taking tickets
, I don't care.
I don't give a shit what thejob is Right.
I want to touch the work when Ithink about social work and
(07:53):
religion and theater.
My understanding is that loveright and by love I mean
acceptance, understand, like youknow, unconditional the way
(08:14):
that we understand somebody allthe way through and we
appreciate all of them.
If we can do that for ourselves, we can do that for other
people.
And if we can do that forourselves, we can start to think
about other people and thinkthat they deserve what we
deserve, which is at the root ofempathy.
And empathy and compassion areat the root of justice, because
(08:35):
if we want for ourselves, thenwe want for each other.
Empathy is what makes us want ajust society.
Right now we are witnessing amoment when the control is about
to be put into the hands of theunempathetic, and God help us.
But because empathy is at theroot of a just society, we need
(08:57):
as much empathy as we canengender and the standing with
people and loving them, which islike seeing them and accepting
them, making space for them tobe themselves.
That is social work and that isministry.
And the presentation, thesharing of authentic human
experience so that audiences canhave that communion.
(09:19):
That's theater.
Alan Schneider, the director,who you know was a prominent
director in New York and Americaand Broadway and in the West
End in the 1960s and 70s.
(09:41):
He came to talk with us atPurchase once he was directing a
show there and he did acolloquium and somebody asked
him like okay, you travel allaround, you do all this stuff.
What's the most amazing theateryou think is going on today?
And they were hoping, like Ithink there was somebody who
wanted to hear him talk aboutexperimental theater.
He was not an experimentaltheater artist and he said,
(10:02):
actually he said you know, a fewweeks ago I was at somewhere in
the middle of America and I sawa community theater production
of Oklahoma.
He said that had been put on byliterally the whole town.
He said it was the mostexciting thing I've seen in
years.
(10:22):
A couple years ago I got draftedinto a professional production
of the musical Parade, an equityproduction, and I was the only
sort of non-professional in thecast and it doesn't really
matter why and how I got there.
I had an amazing time.
(10:43):
I had an amazing time.
But I also saw a lot of what Isee everywhere, no matter where
I make theater, which is thatyou're in a collaborative art
form, you're making art incommunity and usually by the
(11:05):
time you go up.
What you see on a stagerepresents a compromised vision.
It's not anybody's pure vision,because there are vicissitudes,
right, we didn't have the moneyfor that set piece, we didn't
have the money for this, wedidn't have the time for this,
that musician can't quite playit the way we wanted, so they
have to whatever it is right.
Community theater is notdifferent in that regard.
It's usually a compromisedvision, and I will also say that
(11:29):
every now and then in theprofessional theater you get the
dream of something that is whatyou describe like six artists
who all know their shit and whatthey make is, you know, divine,
and sometimes we get that too.
We get that too.
(11:54):
This last spring, actuallyabout a year ago, this community
theater organization up inConnecticut reached out to me.
They had on their schedule inthe spring a production of Alice
in Wonderland which you know Ithink they were planning on
doing sort of in a very pink andwhite.
You know Alice like mainstreamsort of a way, and you know, to
me Alice is a that's a dark andinteresting story written by a
(12:18):
dark and interesting human.
And the production that thatlatched onto me in in the early
70s, as I was beginning myconservatory training, was a
production by a company calledthe Manhattan Project, which was
led by Andre Gregory.
He recruited six performers whowere all trained in the work of
Jerzy Grotowski, who was sortof the god of experimental
(12:39):
theater.
He was from Wrocław, poland,jerzy Grotowski to be
technically correct, fromWrocław, poland, jerzy Grotowski
to be technically correct, andthey spent two years working on
the text and they created thiswild, anarchic, deeply resonant
(13:04):
and weirdly funny oh my Godpiece of work of Alice and it
was an instant sort of a smashin the world of experimental
theater.
It was a sensation.
Everybody saw it.
It toured the world, theyplayed it for like five years.
So when this theater companysaid to me, would you direct
Alice in Wonderland?
I said well, only if I can dothis.
And they said yes, so the textcan be licensed and I I budgeted
(13:30):
more time than we usually have.
I I'd scheduled 30 rehearsals,which for community theater is
quite a bit, and I cast sixwonderful artists as cast, which
is to say I didn't give themroles, I just said come and do
this with me.
And they all said yes.
By the time we startedrehearsals I had assigned roles.
(13:52):
We ranged in age from an18-year-old to a 70-year-old,
and they all from word one.
From first rehearsal they wereall, every one of them, all in.
I mean all in and all in foreach other, and we built this
very layered physical score.
(14:14):
That was not easy, andespecially for some of them,
like who, just for them, youknow, like this woman on the
cast.
Just standing up and sittingdown is tough Her knees, you
know, like that.
And they were all in.
Whatever I brought in achoreographer, I brought in a
fight choreographer and thetheater re-engineered their
(14:34):
space so it was more like atheater in the round with a
thrust area in the middle thanlike the proscenium space.
It is.
They literally rebuilt thetheater for me Xenium's base, it
is.
They literally rebuilt thetheater for me.
And this art director, friend,art handler, friend came in and
built this underworldenvironment so that what you saw
around you were the roots oftrees.
(14:54):
So it looked like you hadliterally gone.
The audience was sort ofunderground.
And my friend, keith Levinson,who was one of my longest time
collaborators and a composer,wrote this haunting, evocative,
celtically inflected score.
In a lifetime of making theaterI couldn't be prouder than I
(15:18):
was of that work.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
This world that we live in has flattened out.
You know it's like it screens.
You know it screens frommorning till night.
You know you're on your phone,you're in front of your computer
, you're watching your TV.
You know it's just screen timewhich engages exactly the same
part of your brain.
So it's been no surprise to methat that.
(15:50):
You know, live theater is oneof the more dynamic and
successful parts of theentertainment industry because
it is, it is in its own uniquespace, and community theater,
you know, is part of that.
And you know, when you thinkabout people who are working in
(16:11):
the city all day, maybe workingat City Hall or working in a
lawyer's office or something,and then they drive out to their
home and then they, instead ofsitting in front of their screen
, they get back in their car andthey go to a rehearsal hall
somewhere in their town and theyhave a live, emotional
interaction, they build thisemotional thing.
The power of that isuntouchable.
Speaker 3 (16:33):
The play I'm doing right now.
It's like, ok, if I think aboutthe cast, there's a school
teacher, there's a hedge fundmanager.
There's a high school student.
There's a high school student.
There's a fine men's clothingsalesperson, there's me.
You know, it's pretty random interms of how we spend our days.
(16:56):
It's really random, yeah, butwhat we look for as a director
and a producer doing communitytheater, what I want to do every
single time is make the belovedcommunity.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
Right.
Speaker 3 (17:10):
And I mean that in a very religious way.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
I learned when I started doing, when I started
directing and producingShakespeare, rather as I, in the
same way that I learned when Istarted doing school social work
that sarcasm was a luxury Icould not afford.
You know, I grew up as a reallylike as a theater kid.
We were all really bitchy, youknow.
We were really proud of howfunny and bitchy we were and it
(17:35):
was all like.
You know, it was like RuPaul'sDrag Race all the time.
And as a theater, as a communitytheater artist, I have to
intentionally model a kindnessand acceptance and I, like I
will make fun of me, you know,or a moment, but I will never,
ever.
There's an Albert Schweitzerquote that I love that says
(17:57):
never let it.
No, it's not, it's Elie Wieseland it says never let anyone be
humiliated in your presence.
And I have to live like that asa theater artist.
There's this old school way ofteaching theater.
Right, that's this idea thatI'm going to be a threshold.
Right, I'm going to.
If you have to be able, youhave to get through me and you
(18:18):
have to be, I'm going to toughenyou up, and I just think it's
bullshit on the face of it.
I understand a profession thatyou need to be like.
It's a business of failure.
You're going to audition athousand times.
God knows I did it.
Business of failure.
You're going to audition athousand times, god knows I did
it.
But art acting, being on stageis the activity of being naked
(18:45):
in front of people.
You have this false exteriorright, I'm not really an
85-year-old ship captain orwhatever the fuck I'm playing.
But the heart I'm carrying onstage with me is all mine and
wide open, or the performance isdead and we can't scare people
into vulnerability.
It doesn't work.
What you end up with are thosevery, very shiny, polished
Broadway performances that leaveyou feeling nothing except oh,
(19:07):
they were really good.
The director is look, if we doa really good job, an audience
will come out and they'll go.
That was really great.
And if we do a better job, ifwe go all the way, an audience
will come out and say somethinghappened to me during the time I
was watching that show.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
I'd love to hear from you about your process of
creating that belovedperformance where you start, how
you bring these people along,you know, what are the
milestones you're going through,and how do you lay this thing
out in your mind?
Speaker 3 (19:53):
Okay.
So, god, it's like you know howdo you make a tribe ever, how
do you make a community ever?
Right, at the very firstmeeting, you set out, you make
promises to them, you makeagreements with them.
Here's what you can expect fromme, here's what I need to
expect from you, here's what wecan expect from each other.
And I say day one moment when Isay this is going to be a
(20:17):
respectful and a lovingenvironment.
We are going to beintentionally kind to each other
.
Um, we are not going to, andwe're also going to be aware of
our status and power.
You know, if there aredifferences in ethnicity, age,
gender in this room, and if youhave some of the privilege that
attaches to those differences,you are not going to use them in
(20:38):
any kind of exploitative way inthis room, in this community.
So we're really clear from thefront what we are about, that we
are about the business ofacceptance and helping people be
supported so they can open upand blossom and grow.
(21:00):
And I also say, and have saidfor a very long time, that I
don't weigh the word communityheavier or lighter than the word
theater.
They have equal weight to methe quality of the community in
which I make theater is asimportant as the theater I make
(21:21):
in that community.
That's sort of like a whatprofit a man if he gets the
whole world and loses his soulIf I make this really wonderful
show but we want to all fuckingkill each other?
I don't want to fucking killeach other.
I don't want.
I don't want to.
All right, I'm not being paid,I don't need that shit.
Right?
Either we're going to be inlove with each other and we're
going to be delighted to seeeach other every time we show up
(21:42):
and we're going to throw ourlot in together and see what we
can create, or I don't want to.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
I don't need to how does that work?
I how many people actually buyinto that and kind of go for it?
Everybody.
Speaker 3 (21:55):
So I've been doing this long enough now.
Yeah, I don't.
Certainly there are people thatI have worked with before who
know me and they know who I am,and Karen as well, because we
work similarly.
They know who we are, they knowthe kind of theater we make,
they know what it feels like todo theater with us, um, and
there are people who, um, don'tget it, and we know don't get it
(22:19):
because we've worked with themin other theaters, in other
contexts.
There are places where I'vedirected, where I'm like, yeah,
this is not my like, I willbring what I can to you but out,
but but the culture, uh, I'm analien here.
You know, um, and you know noteverybody can do what I ask here
(22:42):
, right, you know, we're all, weall, we're all broken in one
way or another.
We just are, um, and I like oneof the things I have said as a
social worker is that heartsbreak two ways open and close.
So, um, for some people whosehearts have broken closed,
there's a limit to how muchthey're going to give themselves
to this.
And some people insist onbringing this, uh, bringing a,
(23:04):
you know, a competitive or asnarky, whatever spirit to the
work.
And then you know we deal withthem as individuals.
We sit down with them and go.
I don't think you'renecessarily getting what we're
doing here.
You know, see, if you cannotice what's going on around
you and roll with us, and if itdoesn't work, then you know like
, we all deal with it the bestwe can.
(23:25):
And we know we're not likely tocast that person again, but I
would say that for a lot ofpeople, when they find their way
into a production that's beingdone the way we do it, they come
to crave it.
(23:47):
You know, I was talking to afriend who was in one of my
shows recently.
This is somebody I really value, but we hadn't worked together.
Karen had directed her, but shewas in this cast of Alice and
she was talking about havinggone to audition for a show at a
theater that doesn'tnecessarily work in this kind of
a way and that the director waslike I forget what they were,
(24:13):
just like asking for aparticular accent, whatever you
know.
But the other performances Iguess they were down to
callbacks or people were all inthe room and the other
performers were like going inthis direction.
That was very sort of I don'tknow histrionic fake, whatever.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
And this friend of mine, she, I decided to peter
green them in studio digigi,I've got a platform called
community theater of the mind.
That's an idea I haven't quiteexecuted yet, but it's in my
(24:53):
mind and I'm like, well, whatthe hell?
We're just going to have to dothis in a remote way, you know,
offer people, offer voice actorsand people, you know look a
community around an art piece,and for no other purpose than to
have a communal experience, youknow, just to keep us in touch
(25:18):
with each other.
I also think it'd be a reallygood idea if we had all of
cabinet members.
Before they're confirmed byCongress, they take part in a
community theater production.
I think, that should be thefirst thing.
I don't want to make a playwith some of these people.
I'm sorry.
No, they have to, but they haveto.
Speaker 3 (25:38):
Well then, with somebody other than me, please.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
This has been Creativity to Gigi, produced by
Studio to Gigi.
I think Peter Green has someanswers for us, honestly, and a
place to go which are key to usright now.
Key to us.
Find a place to connect beyondyour screen, beyond the news,
beyond weird leaders telling uswhat's good for us.
(26:09):
Forget all that weird leaderstelling us what's good for us.
Forget all that and find aperformance to participate in, a
place to practice the beautifulart of theater.
Thank you, peter Green, forsharing your compassion.
(26:30):
Join us, subscribe Studio2GGio.
Please help us build the nextgeneration of creativity that
puts artists first, beyond thepocket of the digerati those
guys have made enough money andinto the center of our hearts,
our shared hearts.
Thanks for listening.
(26:50):
Until next time.
This is Chris McHale and thishas been Creativity Gigi, gigi,
gigi.
This is Creativity GGG with Chris McHale.
Today we are talking to PeterGreen, a good friend, a social
worker, a school counsellor, atherapist and what I believe is
an integral part of his life.
A community theatre director isan integral part of his life.
A community theatre director.
Peter rolls all his empathyinto a big ball of cotton and
(00:29):
wraps the artists who work withhim in the community into a
beautiful patchwork quilt ofemotional and generous
performances.
When we started to think aboutthe crazy town state of the
world, we began to think whatcan we do?
We started to think about Peterand his devotion to the shared
art of community theatre.
Let's meet him.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
I first met Peter at a party on the Upper West Side,
which was a lot of years ago.
He was an IT guy when I firstmet him.
Then he went into sales,production sales, selling
production companies to theadvertising schools, helping
(01:25):
young people.
And there's been a long journeyfor Peter Green, but there's
been a spine of his journey allalong which is a love and a
passion for community theaterwhich he shared with his wife,
karen Zakes, and the two of thembecame very entrepreneurial and
(01:46):
very active in communitytheater and to me their embrace
of community theater was takingthe essence of what theater
actually is and shaping it andusing it as a community
buildingbuilding healing tool.
(02:06):
That's the way I saw their workand I wanted to ask Peter how
he got from where I first methim as an IT guy to where he is
now.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
God, how do I even begin?
I'll begin like this.
If you ask me how I identifymyself at this stage of my life,
which is sort of far along, youknow I'm pushing 70.
I would say that I'm aperforming artist.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
As a kid as a little kid, earliest memories I wanted
to be an actor and you know, Ithink that we I don't know if
it's genetic that we're artistsor something else I know that my
reason for wanting to be anactor as a little kid was all
about being looked at and beingvalidated and being, you know,
adulation and getting laughs andapplause and all that stuff.
(02:57):
And I think many of us who takethis path discover, as we learn
our craft and as we deepen ourconnection to creativity, that
our reasons for wanting to dowhat we do go, you know, 180
really radically altered.
It's been a long time since Ihave felt that the reason for
(03:22):
wanting to be an artist wasbecause I wanted something from
an audience.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Right.
What does that mean?
Exactly?
Speaker 3 (03:29):
Well, I think that what I want to now is to share
something with an audience.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
If I want something from an audience, it's communion
.
It's not validation.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
I got you, I understand.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
And I'll just say one more thing about the genetic
idea One of my acting teachers,the person who was my advisor
through college I had aconversation with her years
later and I had gone to aconservatory and she said that
she thought that artists werethe descendants of the hunters
(04:03):
and gatherers, not the agrarians.
And what we're hunting for, ofcourse, is impressions and
connection.
So I feel like that's thebackground I need to say before
I start this.
So here's where the story getsinteresting.
I guess it's also where thestory gets religious.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
You say religious.
Speaker 3 (04:27):
Yeah, I did.
I got invited to be a youthadvisor at a Unitarian retreat,
a week-long conference forreligious educators, on an
island called Star Island, whichis a beautiful and haunting
place 11 miles off the coast ofPortsmouth, New Hampshire.
And at the end of the week, onthe last morning, I attended a
theme talk by this person whowas the minister that week, a
brilliant speaker, theologian,minister, writer, a woman named
(04:52):
Nancy Crumbine the right way, byNancy Crumbine, who was up in
New Hampshire and who I revereto this day, and she was talking
about universalist theology, sounitary universalism, those are
merged denominations.
And the question she asked wasif you had no shame, if there
(05:17):
was no reason to be ashamed, ifeverything about you was
entirely acceptable both to youand to all of existence, what
would you do with your life?
I was on the train, my littlecommuter train, one night
(05:40):
reading.
We used to have these thingscalled newspapers that you could
read on the train.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
Oh yeah, I heard about those.
Speaker 3 (05:45):
Yeah, and in the back of it, they used to have these
things called newspapers thatyou could read on the train.
Oh, yeah, I heard about those,yeah, and then the back of it,
they used to have these littleads, like they called them,
classified ads.
Oh, wow, yeah, that's how wefound stuff.
So I'm reading this newspaper,I'm putting quotes around it
because it's such a relic idea.
I'm reading this newspaper andI see a classified ad in the
back that's a casting notice fora community theater production
(06:07):
of Glenn Gary, glenn Ross, at atheater in White Plains.
And I walk into my house andthere's my lovely wife and my
lovely kids and the you know,like just all this bustle and
activity.
It's dinner time and I lookedat my wife and I said it's
dinner time.
And I looked at my wife and Isaid I think I want to go play.
And she said go play.
(06:29):
So I went and auditioned.
I don't want to feel veryemotional about this right now.
It's funny.
Yeah, it's an emotional story.
I went and auditioned and,because I had once upon a time
been as trained as I had beenand had done as much theater as
I had done, I walked into thataudition knowing what I knew and
knowing that I knew what I knew, like it was all there, right,
(06:53):
and I auditioned and I got therole of Ricky Romo, which is the
Joe Mantegna part, the Pacinopart, I get you know.
It's the he's sort of theanti-hero of the piece.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
And I felt like I'd come home.
But I don't think of myself asan actor anymore, although I'm
comfortable on stage.
I think of myself as an actoranymore.
Although I'm comfortable onstage, I think of myself as a
performing artist.
And whether I'm doing whetherI'm directing or I do a lot of
(07:32):
sound design and or if I'mrunning a board you know a
soundboard or if I am beinghouse manager and taking tickets
, I don't care.
I don't give a shit what thejob is Right.
I want to touch the work when Ithink about social work and
(07:53):
religion and theater.
My understanding is that loveright and by love I mean
acceptance, understand, like youknow, unconditional the way
(08:14):
that we understand somebody allthe way through and we
appreciate all of them.
If we can do that for ourselves, we can do that for other
people.
And if we can do that forourselves, we can start to think
about other people and thinkthat they deserve what we
deserve, which is at the root ofempathy.
And empathy and compassion areat the root of justice, because
(08:35):
if we want for ourselves, thenwe want for each other.
Empathy is what makes us want ajust society.
Right now we are witnessing amoment when the control is about
to be put into the hands of theunempathetic, and God help us.
But because empathy is at theroot of a just society, we need
(08:57):
as much empathy as we canengender and the standing with
people and loving them, which islike seeing them and accepting
them, making space for them tobe themselves.
That is social work and that isministry.
And the presentation, thesharing of authentic human
experience so that audiences canhave that communion.
(09:19):
That's theater.
Alan Schneider, the director,who you know was a prominent
director in New York and Americaand Broadway and in the West
End in the 1960s and 70s.
(09:41):
He came to talk with us atPurchase once he was directing a
show there and he did acolloquium and somebody asked
him like okay, you travel allaround, you do all this stuff.
What's the most amazing theateryou think is going on today?
And they were hoping, like Ithink there was somebody who
wanted to hear him talk aboutexperimental theater.
He was not an experimentaltheater artist and he said,
(10:02):
actually he said you know, a fewweeks ago I was at somewhere in
the middle of America and I sawa community theater production
of Oklahoma.
He said that had been put on byliterally the whole town.
He said it was the mostexciting thing I've seen in
years.
(10:22):
A couple years ago I got draftedinto a professional production
of the musical Parade, an equityproduction, and I was the only
sort of non-professional in thecast and it doesn't really
matter why and how I got there.
I had an amazing time.
(10:43):
I had an amazing time.
But I also saw a lot of what Isee everywhere, no matter where
I make theater, which is thatyou're in a collaborative art
form, you're making art incommunity and usually by the
(11:05):
time you go up.
What you see on a stagerepresents a compromised vision.
It's not anybody's pure vision,because there are vicissitudes,
right, we didn't have the moneyfor that set piece, we didn't
have the money for this, wedidn't have the time for this,
that musician can't quite playit the way we wanted, so they
have to whatever it is right.
Community theater is notdifferent in that regard.
It's usually a compromisedvision, and I will also say that
(11:29):
every now and then in theprofessional theater you get the
dream of something that is whatyou describe like six artists
who all know their shit and whatthey make is, you know, divine,
and sometimes we get that too.
We get that too.
(11:54):
This last spring, actuallyabout a year ago, this community
theater organization up inConnecticut reached out to me.
They had on their schedule inthe spring a production of Alice
in Wonderland which you know Ithink they were planning on
doing sort of in a very pink andwhite.
You know Alice like mainstreamsort of a way, and you know, to
me Alice is a that's a dark andinteresting story written by a
(12:18):
dark and interesting human.
And the production that thatlatched onto me in in the early
70s, as I was beginning myconservatory training, was a
production by a company calledthe Manhattan Project, which was
led by Andre Gregory.
He recruited six performers whowere all trained in the work of
Jerzy Grotowski, who was sortof the god of experimental
(12:39):
theater.
He was from Wrocław, poland,jerzy Grotowski to be
technically correct, fromWrocław, poland, jerzy Grotowski
to be technically correct, andthey spent two years working on
the text and they created thiswild, anarchic, deeply resonant
(13:04):
and weirdly funny oh my Godpiece of work of Alice and it
was an instant sort of a smashin the world of experimental
theater.
It was a sensation.
Everybody saw it.
It toured the world, theyplayed it for like five years.
So when this theater companysaid to me, would you direct
Alice in Wonderland?
I said well, only if I can dothis.
And they said yes, so the textcan be licensed and I I budgeted
(13:30):
more time than we usually have.
I I'd scheduled 30 rehearsals,which for community theater is
quite a bit, and I cast sixwonderful artists as cast, which
is to say I didn't give themroles, I just said come and do
this with me.
And they all said yes.
By the time we startedrehearsals I had assigned roles.
(13:52):
We ranged in age from an18-year-old to a 70-year-old,
and they all from word one.
From first rehearsal they wereall, every one of them, all in.
I mean all in and all in foreach other, and we built this
very layered physical score.
(14:14):
That was not easy, andespecially for some of them,
like who, just for them, youknow, like this woman on the
cast.
Just standing up and sittingdown is tough Her knees, you
know, like that.
And they were all in.
Whatever I brought in achoreographer, I brought in a
fight choreographer and thetheater re-engineered their
(14:34):
space so it was more like atheater in the round with a
thrust area in the middle thanlike the proscenium space.
It is.
They literally rebuilt thetheater for me Xenium's base, it
is.
They literally rebuilt thetheater for me.
And this art director, friend,art handler, friend came in and
built this underworldenvironment so that what you saw
around you were the roots oftrees.
(14:54):
So it looked like you hadliterally gone.
The audience was sort ofunderground.
And my friend, keith Levinson,who was one of my longest time
collaborators and a composer,wrote this haunting, evocative,
celtically inflected score.
In a lifetime of making theaterI couldn't be prouder than I
(15:18):
was of that work.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
This world that we live in has flattened out.
You know it's like it screens.
You know it screens frommorning till night.
You know you're on your phone,you're in front of your computer
, you're watching your TV.
You know it's just screen timewhich engages exactly the same
part of your brain.
So it's been no surprise to methat that.
(15:50):
You know, live theater is oneof the more dynamic and
successful parts of theentertainment industry because
it is, it is in its own uniquespace, and community theater,
you know, is part of that.
And you know, when you thinkabout people who are working in
(16:11):
the city all day, maybe workingat City Hall or working in a
lawyer's office or something,and then they drive out to their
home and then they, instead ofsitting in front of their screen
, they get back in their car andthey go to a rehearsal hall
somewhere in their town and theyhave a live, emotional
interaction, they build thisemotional thing.
The power of that isuntouchable.
Speaker 3 (16:33):
The play I'm doing right now.
It's like, ok, if I think aboutthe cast, there's a school
teacher, there's a hedge fundmanager.
There's a high school student.
There's a high school student.
There's a fine men's clothingsalesperson, there's me.
You know, it's pretty random interms of how we spend our days.
(16:56):
It's really random, yeah, butwhat we look for as a director
and a producer doing communitytheater, what I want to do every
single time is make the belovedcommunity.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
Right.
Speaker 3 (17:10):
And I mean that in a very religious way.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
I learned when I started doing, when I started
directing and producingShakespeare, rather as I, in the
same way that I learned when Istarted doing school social work
that sarcasm was a luxury Icould not afford.
You know, I grew up as a reallylike as a theater kid.
We were all really bitchy, youknow.
We were really proud of howfunny and bitchy we were and it
(17:35):
was all like.
You know, it was like RuPaul'sDrag Race all the time.
And as a theater, as a communitytheater artist, I have to
intentionally model a kindnessand acceptance and I, like I
will make fun of me, you know,or a moment, but I will never,
ever.
There's an Albert Schweitzerquote that I love that says
(17:57):
never let it.
No, it's not, it's Elie Wieseland it says never let anyone be
humiliated in your presence.
And I have to live like that asa theater artist.
There's this old school way ofteaching theater.
Right, that's this idea thatI'm going to be a threshold.
Right, I'm going to.
If you have to be able, youhave to get through me and you
(18:18):
have to be, I'm going to toughenyou up, and I just think it's
bullshit on the face of it.
I understand a profession thatyou need to be like.
It's a business of failure.
You're going to audition athousand times.
God knows I did it.
Business of failure.
You're going to audition athousand times, god knows I did
it.
But art acting, being on stageis the activity of being naked
(18:45):
in front of people.
You have this false exteriorright, I'm not really an
85-year-old ship captain orwhatever the fuck I'm playing.
But the heart I'm carrying onstage with me is all mine and
wide open, or the performance isdead and we can't scare people
into vulnerability.
It doesn't work.
What you end up with are thosevery, very shiny, polished
Broadway performances that leaveyou feeling nothing except oh,
(19:07):
they were really good.
The director is look, if we doa really good job, an audience
will come out and they'll go.
That was really great.
And if we do a better job, ifwe go all the way, an audience
will come out and say somethinghappened to me during the time I
was watching that show.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
I'd love to hear from you about your process of
creating that belovedperformance where you start, how
you bring these people along,you know, what are the
milestones you're going through,and how do you lay this thing
out in your mind?
Speaker 3 (19:53):
Okay.
So, god, it's like you know howdo you make a tribe ever, how
do you make a community ever?
Right, at the very firstmeeting, you set out, you make
promises to them, you makeagreements with them.
Here's what you can expect fromme, here's what I need to
expect from you, here's what wecan expect from each other.
And I say day one moment when Isay this is going to be a
(20:17):
respectful and a lovingenvironment.
We are going to beintentionally kind to each other
.
Um, we are not going to, andwe're also going to be aware of
our status and power.
You know, if there aredifferences in ethnicity, age,
gender in this room, and if youhave some of the privilege that
attaches to those differences,you are not going to use them in
(20:38):
any kind of exploitative way inthis room, in this community.
So we're really clear from thefront what we are about, that we
are about the business ofacceptance and helping people be
supported so they can open upand blossom and grow.
(21:00):
And I also say, and have saidfor a very long time, that I
don't weigh the word communityheavier or lighter than the word
theater.
They have equal weight to methe quality of the community in
which I make theater is asimportant as the theater I make
(21:21):
in that community.
That's sort of like a whatprofit a man if he gets the
whole world and loses his soulIf I make this really wonderful
show but we want to all fuckingkill each other?
I don't want to fucking killeach other.
I don't want.
I don't want to.
All right, I'm not being paid,I don't need that shit.
Right?
Either we're going to be inlove with each other and we're
going to be delighted to seeeach other every time we show up
(21:42):
and we're going to throw ourlot in together and see what we
can create, or I don't want to.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
I don't need to how does that work?
I how many people actually buyinto that and kind of go for it?
Everybody.
Speaker 3 (21:55):
So I've been doing this long enough now.
Yeah, I don't.
Certainly there are people thatI have worked with before who
know me and they know who I am,and Karen as well, because we
work similarly.
They know who we are, they knowthe kind of theater we make,
they know what it feels like todo theater with us, um, and
there are people who, um, don'tget it, and we know don't get it
(22:19):
because we've worked with themin other theaters, in other
contexts.
There are places where I'vedirected, where I'm like, yeah,
this is not my like, I willbring what I can to you but out,
but but the culture, uh, I'm analien here.
You know, um, and you know noteverybody can do what I ask here
(22:42):
, right, you know, we're all, weall, we're all broken in one
way or another.
We just are, um, and I like oneof the things I have said as a
social worker is that heartsbreak two ways open and close.
So, um, for some people whosehearts have broken closed,
there's a limit to how muchthey're going to give themselves
to this.
And some people insist onbringing this, uh, bringing a,
(23:04):
you know, a competitive or asnarky, whatever spirit to the
work.
And then you know we deal withthem as individuals.
We sit down with them and go.
I don't think you'renecessarily getting what we're
doing here.
You know, see, if you cannotice what's going on around
you and roll with us, and if itdoesn't work, then you know like
, we all deal with it the bestwe can.
(23:25):
And we know we're not likely tocast that person again, but I
would say that for a lot ofpeople, when they find their way
into a production that's beingdone the way we do it, they come
to crave it.
(23:47):
You know, I was talking to afriend who was in one of my
shows recently.
This is somebody I really value, but we hadn't worked together.
Karen had directed her, but shewas in this cast of Alice and
she was talking about havinggone to audition for a show at a
theater that doesn'tnecessarily work in this kind of
a way and that the director waslike I forget what they were,
(24:13):
just like asking for aparticular accent, whatever you
know.
But the other performances Iguess they were down to
callbacks or people were all inthe room and the other
performers were like going inthis direction.
That was very sort of I don'tknow histrionic fake, whatever.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
And this friend of mine, she, I decided to peter
green them in studio digigi,I've got a platform called
community theater of the mind.
That's an idea I haven't quiteexecuted yet, but it's in my
(24:53):
mind and I'm like, well, whatthe hell?
We're just going to have to dothis in a remote way, you know,
offer people, offer voice actorsand people, you know look a
community around an art piece,and for no other purpose than to
have a communal experience, youknow, just to keep us in touch
(25:18):
with each other.
I also think it'd be a reallygood idea if we had all of
cabinet members.
Before they're confirmed byCongress, they take part in a
community theater production.
I think, that should be thefirst thing.
I don't want to make a playwith some of these people.
I'm sorry.
No, they have to, but they haveto.
Speaker 3 (25:38):
Well then, with somebody other than me, please.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
This has been Creativity to Gigi, produced by
Studio to Gigi.
I think Peter Green has someanswers for us, honestly, and a
place to go which are key to usright now.
Key to us.
Find a place to connect beyondyour screen, beyond the news,
beyond weird leaders telling uswhat's good for us.
(26:09):
Forget all that weird leaderstelling us what's good for us.
Forget all that and find aperformance to participate in, a
place to practice the beautifulart of theater.
Thank you, peter Green, forsharing your compassion.
(26:30):
Join us, subscribe Studio2GGio.
Please help us build the nextgeneration of creativity that
puts artists first, beyond thepocket of the digerati those
guys have made enough money andinto the center of our hearts,
our shared hearts.
Thanks for listening.
(26:50):
Until next time.
This is Chris McHale and thishas been Creativity Gigi, gigi,
gigi.
Popular Podcasts
Cold Case Files: Miami
Joyce Sapp, 76; Bryan Herrera, 16; and Laurance Webb, 32—three Miami residents whose lives were stolen in brutal, unsolved homicides.  Cold Case Files: Miami follows award‑winning radio host and City of Miami Police reserve officer  Enrique Santos as he partners with the department’s Cold Case Homicide Unit, determined family members, and the advocates who spend their lives fighting for justice for the victims who can no longer fight for themselves.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.