Creators of Kitchen Theatre Company’s 2009-10 Season’s World Premiere FIRST DAY by Ted LoRusso in collaboration with Sturgis Warner: a conversation

Playwright Ted LoRusso and director/collaborator Sturgis Warner have been work-shopping FIRST DAY in New York City for the last 18 months. This season the first full production will happen at the Kitchen. Rachel got the inside story from Sturgis & Ted in August, 2009.

RACHEL: Sturgis and Ted, how did the two of you meet?

STURGIS WARNER: A producer hooked us up. She had organized a reading series and had included a play of Ted's. She thought I might relate to the humor of it. Ted and I met one afternoon for a few hours. I gave him some dramaturgical notes and we had a good conversation. For some reason the reading was cancelled, and I didn't hear from Ted for another three years. One day, out of the blue, he called and asked if I would like to direct a new play of his called PRELUDE TO THE FIRST DAY, Suite for Four Actors and Percussionist. It was to be part of a short play festival produced by Emerging Artists Theatre. Oh, and auditions for company members were to be held that evening. I read the play and loved it immediately – the rhythm, the humor, the theatricality, the wild originality. I thought it had great possibilities. We gathered up a wonderful cast including Erin Gann as Johnny Diamond. The 20-minute play went spectacularly well, and that was that. Or so we thought. I had a nagging feeling that there was a longer play in Ted's little gem. Johnny Diamond had overcome many obstacles in getting to his first day of work. What might happen to him once he got there? Ted tried some different scenarios, but was unhappy with the results. I offered to meet with him once a week to bounce around ideas as he wrote. He took me up on it, we plunged in, and a collaboration began.

TED LoRUSSO: About seven years ago, I met a wonderful producer lady. She was a regular in the restaurant where I waited on tables. She liked her Pinot Grigio but didn’t like to pay for it. Coincidentally, I had written a play, but no one wanted to read it. Without speaking a word, the producer lady and I cut a deal: she reads my play; I give her an oenological I.V. Luckily, she liked my play. So much so, she scheduled a reading, and assigned Sturgis Warner as the director. Sturgis and I met at a coffee shop in the East Village, whereupon Sturgis asked me three simple questions about the play. I went home that afternoon, answered those questions, and my play suddenly made sense. Unfortunately, the reading never materialized, but I never forgot Sturgis and those damn questions. Three years later, I needed a director for the one-act version of First Day. It had made it into a short-play festival, but no director would touch it. I called Sturgis on a Friday. He was on his way to Washington. He took the play with him, read it on the train, and called that evening to say he would direct it. We’re now married with three children…and two birds. Don’t tell his girlfriend. She knows about the children. But not about the birds.

RACHEL: FIRST DAY has such an unusual structure. We're calling it a "theatrical event". Would you describe the structure for us and let us know how you rehearse something like this?

STURGIS: A "theatrical event" is a good description. FIRST DAY certainly is different from most other plays. And yet, it is still very much a play. It just has a different set of rules that govern it. A young man, Johnny Diamond, excited, nervous, petrified, makes a labyrinth-like journey to the first day of his very first job. The whole play is viewed from the inside of Johnny's mind. The four actors and percussionist, make up the singular character. Three men and a woman articulate the inner voices, thoughts, ideas, fantasies and imagined conversations of this young man. The percussionist is Johnny's rhythm, his unarticulated moods, emotions, his heartbeat. Together they express a vivacious, completely uncensored inner life -- perhaps not unlike the ones that churn so privately inside many of us. The play is structured like a piece of music. There are three movements and a coda, each quite different, yet each springing out from the one before. I sometimes describe it as a musical with very little singing. FIRST DAY places a tremendous burden on the actors. There is a huge amount to learn, and learn collectively. In the two previous incarnations, the short play and the workshop, we plunged right into the choreography after only a day or two of text work. The everything-at-once approach. For this production we will spend a full week on the text before getting actors up on their feet. In musicals actors typically learn the music first. We are going to try that same approach, although it will take the cast considerably longer than a week to fully know this text.

TED: Most of my plays differ wildly in how they are constructed. I tend to play freely with form and structure, but not out of any creative inclination. It’s because I bore so easily. For me there is no point in putting fingers to keyboard if I’m going to write the same play over and over, again and again. Give me something new. I’d like to say that I entertain variety because I write to discover. That would be lofty, wouldn’t it? Suitable for PBS. But the truth is I’m nothing but a petulant playwright with severe A.D.D., constantly in need of something new to play with. Recently, I’ve been playing with the notion of words as sounds, as musical notes, and have written a spate of short plays as if they were musical pieces: a fugue for cell phone, nocturne for two actors and four chairs, cadenza for three actors and a studio audience, etc. Indeed, the first incarnation of FIRST DAY was written as a prelude. This version of FIRST DAY, with its improvised sonata form, is less a departure, more the next step.

RACHEL: Do the actors in this play need special skills? What did you look for in the casting?

STURGIS: FIRST DAY is not an easy play to cast. The actors have to have a wide range of abilities. Language skills are a must. Inner thoughts are uncensored. They are not shy, they do not mumble, at least not in this production. FIRST DAY is also a comedy, so comedic skills are essential. It is dramatic. The stakes are real and they are high. The actors must be able to move really well. A sense of rhythm is very important. The choreography demands that actors work within a tight structure and yet still have a looseness, a freedom of spirit. There is some singing. Most of all, the actors must be ensemble-minded. The play lives or dies with the group.

RACHEL: This play was workshopped in New York City. Would you explain what that means and how that works?

STURGIS: Ted and I met once a week for two and a half years in expanding FIRST DAY from short play to full length. Ted did all the writing and together we hammered out the ideas, structure and nuance. There were many, many avenues tried and discarded. It was not easy. There is a big difference between making 20 minutes work and making a full evening work. When we finally completed a draft that we felt good about, we had a reading at The Lark Play Development Center. Many questions were raised and we learned that we still had a ways to go. We kept working. After honing the script as much as we could, we organized a workshop production through Twilight Theatre Company. It was important to put all the elements together to see just what we had. The workshop was really a full production. We rehearsed for four weeks. It was fully choreographed and the actors were off-book. Designers were brought in. We ran for fourteen performances in front of a paying audience. However, we invited no press and we had no opening night. Rehearsals continued throughout the run. Cuts were made. Sections were worked on and improved. Audiences, who collectively never lie, told us what was working and what was not. They certainly responded positively to the unique nature of the event. But we felt that only 3/4 of the play really worked. We learned a tremendous amount. After the workshop we went back to the script and made the type of changes we couldn't implement during the run lest we overburden our dedicated cast. We streamlined the play, making further cuts. We simplified character assignments, not breaking up the language quite so much. We reworked the ending. We changed the title. One learns so much in workshop situations. This one was crucial in the development of this play.

RACHEL: FIRST DAY has an intriguing subtitle - Suite for 4 Actors and percussionist. When you wrote the play did you always intend it to have live accompaniment?

TED: In the beginning, during the birth pangs of the piece, the moment the mantra, I'm Walking, was born, a percussionist appeared. I can’t recall summoning him; he was just there. It felt essential, so I decided not to question it. Or him. The subtitle came later, when I realized that FIRST DAY was less a play and more a jazz oratorio…without the singing.

RACHEL: Are you a musician? If yes, what instrument do you play? Tell us something about your interest/experience in/with music.

TED: I am not a musician. In an emergency, I can play the piano; and if you put a gun to my head I could probably play the tuba, if there was one in the room. There’s no doubt I tried to become a musician. I took piano with Mrs. Liva, an elegant, white-haired, silver-gilded dame, who smelled of stale lavender and never once yelled at me when my fingers got stuck in The Happy Farmer. I also studied tuba with Chops Marcinko, a hep-cat side-man who cranked it up with Buddy Rich and Stan Kenton, and who eventually came off the road to form my high school jazz band. Mrs. Liva taught me the precision, the discipline, the technique, the heart, the soul, the depth of infinities, the unsolvable equation that is music, and the exquisite joy and oft times healing it brings. Chops Marcinko taught me how to swing all of the above. No, I am not a musician, but I’d like to think I write like one.

RACHEL: What are your hopes for the Kitchen Theatre Company production of the play? How will it differ from the workshops?

STURGIS: We cannot say how grateful we are to the Kitchen for giving us another shot at FIRST DAY. For a script as different as this one, it takes time to figure out just how best to play it. It is our hope, of course, that every second of this production works like gangbusters, that everyone loves it unconditionally, and that it is a huge, huge hit. Realistically, however, we know that this production, for better or for worse, will be an important step in FIRST DAY's developmental process. We are so looking forward to engaging the smart Kitchen audience, and having them teach us about our play. We will have only one holdover from the previous casts, Erin Gann, who has played Johnny Diamond from the beginning. We are excited about our new chorus and new percussionist, although we loved the skills and dedication of both the workshop and short-play performers. The staging will be different. The Kitchen's three-sided thrust demands considerable adjustments from the straight-on proscenium stages of before. The painted grid on the floor is a simpler concept than the workshop version. As a director, I have new approaches and strategies that I am anxious to try. We're really looking forward to seeing how this Kitchen production turns out.

RACHEL: Ted, are you making changes? What are your hopes for the production?

TED: Yes, there will be blood, er, I mean, changes. Based on the collective consciousness of last year’s workshop audience, Sturgis and I have already cut and reworked and emphasized and de-emphasized the script. It is leaner and meaner. But it’s not there yet. And that’s one of the reasons why we are so grateful for this opportunity at the Kitchen. As I write this, Sturgis and I are contemplating ideas for more changes, for better ways to say this or that. My hopes are for a wildly successful production. Luckily, the Kitchen has generously provided us the means to do just that.

RACHEL: Sturgis, you are both a freelance director and you have a theater company in NYC. Would you tell us about your life as a director and your theater company?

STURGIS: Yes, I am a freelance director who specializes in new plays. I work with many different playwrights developing scripts, taking them through workshops, and for the lucky ones, into production. I try to take on as many projects as possible, because any singular play has long odds in making it to full production. To help the odds for the new plays that I feel passionate about, I founded Twilight Theatre Company in 1998. I produced for three and a half years before putting it all in my back pocket so that I could concentrate more on freelance directing. Producing is a HUGE amount of work and I discovered that all I really wanted was to be in a rehearsal room with fellow theatre artists. Sixteen months ago Twilight Theatre Company was resurrected to produce the workshop production of FIRST DAY. This time I had a lot more help. There are four of us running the company now, which makes taking on freelance projects much more possible. I lead a rich life, but not a rich existence. I see money as something that can buy me time -- one of the most essential things that an artist needs to truly be creative. Freelance life has no security. I often don't know what job is next. It is a constant hustle and one has to work very hard. But I love the work and I love the world. I even love the insecurity of it all. The upside to insecurity is that anything can happen at any time. The phone can ring and boom, you're in the thick of another project with a whole new set of theatre artists to work with. That notion can be very exciting!

RACHEL: Ted, Sturgis directed the Kitchen Theatre Company’s production of AFTER ASHLEY, so many KTC patrons know a little about him. Can you give us a little background about yourself, your writing and other productions?

TED: Actually, I didn’t start off as a writer. I started off as a photographer. Two years in Manhattan and I had set up a small operation, specializing in headshots for male models. The male models liked my work. They liked it very much. One model liked my work so much he stole my cameras. And my heart. I had no insurance for either. A week later, on a visit home, weeping into my meatballs, I waited for the inevitable admonishments from my mother, but instead, she plopped a square vinyl zippered case on the table. “I found this in the attic. Don’t know where it came from. You want it?” I unzipped the case. Inside was a smart portable Smith-Corona typewriter in white enamel, complete with ribbon. Of course, yes, I wanted it. Writing is what I had always wanted to do. And apparently I was the last one to realize it. Until that moment. And at that moment, my mother said, “You see…when God closes a door, your mother crawls in the window.” Twenty-five years later, with approximately 30 stage productions and a film under my belt, I may not believe in God, but I certainly believe in a mother who bought a thrift store typewriter with her tip money.

RACHEL: Ted, how was your first day on the job at your first real job?

TED: My first day at my first real job was everything I had imagined it to be…had I imagined a public flogging, on national television, while wearing my sister’s First Holy Communion dress.

RACHEL: Sturgis, what makes a exciting theatrical experience?

STURGIS: Anything that compels an audience, that makes them lean forward in their seats. That is my goal each and every time I undertake a project. However, a lot of elements must cohesively mesh together to make this happen. It's not easy. Even when a production really does come together, it can be exciting one night and much less so the next. It is all so elusive. You cannot bottle live performance. You cannot guarantee it. However, when it happens, nothing can beat the experience of script, performance and audience magically soaring together.