When we booked Charlie Finesilver’s play, THE LIVING ROOM, I was thrilled out of my mind. THE LIVING ROOM is a Civil War drama that takes place in 1862. I have directed a myriad of plays in my life, but at that time, I had never directed a Civil War play with full on period costumes. The prospect of bringing this play to life with the type of dramatic action, and specificity that I do so well was beyond exciting to me. This was going to be amazing fun.

I immediately assembled a fantastic group of actors including Danny McWilliams and Gerry Glennon (who I worked with on Gabi and Eva Mor’s The Bigot, which miraculously made it’s way back to New York City 2 years after our production, as an Off-Broadway show,) Chelsea Clark, (who performed in one of Charlie’s one act plays earlier that spring Exhuming Oneself) Geoff Grady and Alan Homeri (veterans of numerous MRT productions,) Ashley Taylor Greaves (with whom I worked with on my monologue play Men and our first play production program play Le Cygne by Ivan Filippov who produced his play with us from Moscow,) Michelle Morroco (from Undertow by Rita Lewis) and new comer to MRT, Jahmeel Khan-Poulson. It was quite a cast, and all were excited to bring this Civil War Drama to life.

The First rehearsal, we read the rehearsal draft and talked in depth about the history surrounding this play. To bring a play to life which took place over 150 years ago would be an interesting challenge, plus we had the added element that his play took place, in Montgomery Alabama, so we had to work on the southern dialect specific to that time and place.

I had done some research and I had some audio I played to the cast and we talked about the specific phonetic changes to make this dialect specific and real. It was not easy grasping this dialect, so I made a commitment to all that I would learn the dialect and direct the play only using this dialect.

Well, that lasted about a week, when I couldn’t stand it anymore. The specific dialect we were working on required a slower paced drawl along with the vowel changes, and it was way too slow for me to give effective directions so I bowed out of my commitment (to much ridicule from the cast,) so I could actually direct this play with some New York City passion.

Rehearsals seemed to be going well. We were having great fun stepping into that world so far away from our present day society. In addition to the dialect, we worked on the manners and etiquette of the time and all were looking good… but something just wasn’t working.

It was about 10 days before opening, and everyone had their lines down, and all looked good as I sat in the house just staring at the run-through.

“What is missing?“ I thought.
“Why isn’t this coming together?”

And then it hit me, the wondrous magic that happens to me so often in rehearsal, and I saw what we were missing.

It was so so clear.

This Civil War drama was about a family who owned a plantation in Montgomery Alabama. The father and owner of the plantation, recently passed away, and as the story unfolded it looked like the father may have had an affair with the town Madam whom his wife abhorred. Their two sons, were divided by Military lines. The older brother became a Confederate officer and his younger brother, an angry depressed alcoholic, was able to get out of military service, so they were definitely not on the same page, not to mention that the younger brother’s wife had a wild crush on the older brother, the Confederate officer. A slave, the brother of one of the house maids, was brutalized and scarred by a member of the plantation staff, and he breaks loose, and as he holds the family hostage, the town Madam comes knocking on the door, ...and crazy secrets are revealed.

I stopped the rehearsal.

“Guys,” I said, “I got it. I know what is missing.”

The cast stared at me. Most knew what was happening here for they had worked with me before.

“This play is REALITY TV in 1862!”

We had been working so hard on the dialect and the etiquette and the outer universe of 1862, we didn’t see how much of a TRAIN WRECK this family was!

“This play is like the Kardashians on steroids in 1862!”

And they all laughed…

And they got it too!

So for the next 10 days, we focused on the drama big time making bigger and more compelling choices, and the play started to pop in ways I never could have imagined. The work they did on outer universe merged with their new passionate choices and oh my God, did we have fun! AND we were truly fulfilling the playwright’s intention here. It was what I love about this process. It was magic. Magic created by the team: Charlie, the actors and myself. Together we created something none of us alone could ever have even imagined.

When Charlie came to opening night, he was sitting on the edge of his seat with the rest of the audience, as we created this incredible, compelling and REAL experience of this dysfunctional family in Montgomery, Alabama in 1862.

Charlie was thrilled out of his mind, as was the audience

This is reason I do theatre.

To bring to life the true vision of a play, through teamwork and collaboration.

There is no greater adventure, and it is so much friggin’ fun!

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