When Rita Lewis came to us with this romantic drama about two High School friends who meet again after 25 years, I knew I was in for the ride of my life. Rita's script was beautiful, dramatic, crazy funny and it had a beautiful twist that would make this Lesbian Love story truly unique. I was excited out of my mind to bring PAST PERFECT to life.

I immediately thought of the amazing Gerry Glennon as one of the leads. Gerry, over the past year had originated two truly amazing roles, one in The Bigot by Gabi and Eva Mor (which came to Off-Broadway last Spring) and one in The Living Room by Charlie Finesilver, the first Civil War drama I have ever directed. Past Perfect would be a challenge that I knew Gerry would dive into with wild abandon. Rita and I auditioned a number of women for the other lead role, but nobody really nailed the character, and I was concerned. We needed someone great in this role, if not, the play wouldn't fly.

I was breaking down the chairs and tables I set up for the audition when Rita said to me, "How about Jen? She would be perfect for this role. The first time I saw her I thought she would be perfect."

I stopped. "Huh?" I thought. Jen is the love of my life and my partner here at Manhattan Rep. For the last couple of years, she had been doing a lot of TV work, and she and I hadn't worked on a play together since THE MATCH GAME in 2015. Rita was right. She would be perfect. Jen's got incredible acting chops, and she has the sensitivity and the spunk to make this play rock, and to team her with Gerry... Oh my God. This would not be the ride of life, it would be a rollercoaster!

And I love rollercoasters!

So I asked Jen that night. She read the play and she immediately accepted. We found the third actor, Erika Yesenia to play Gerry's daughter in the play, and we were in business.

Rehearsals were insanely fun. When you have a great team, it is really not work, and we were all on the same page, and the moments that we were discovering in rehearsal were amazing.

Jennifer Pierro, Gerry Glennon, Erika Yesenia & Ken Wolf

At one point in the play, the two main characters and love interests, Susan and Beth, end up smoking pot together and drinking, and then they fall into each other's arms in a mad embrace, at which point Susan's daughter accidentally comes into the room and all heck ensues. Because I like big choices and I like to really embody scenes, I decided that we would go really far with the Pot party scene and make it really fun, so as a team we decided that the munchies that they would eat would be pretzels and ice cream and the music that they would play would be Kenny G, and then we went from there. Gerry and Jen ended up dancing on the furniture and getting ice cream and pretzels everywhere. And we turned a steam Vape into a Pot Steamer with some tin foil and theatrical artistry, so it really looked like they were really smoking pot. What happened every night during this scene was so crazy wildly fun and new for Gerry and Jen worked so well together. One of the best scenes I have ever participated in staging in my life.

But with actors like those two, I didn't know what I was getting into. And then when Susan's daughter enters, and sees them lying on the coffee table on top of each other with Ice cream everywhere, the play goes totally wild, as Susan and Beth try to figure out what the heck is going on and how to fix things. Again, one of the best pieces of theatre I have ever staged because of the talents of these great actors and the depth and cleverness of Rita's script.

But the wildest moment of my directorial life, was working on the 90 second kiss and embrace leading to lying on a Ice cream soaked coffee table in a mad impassioned embrace. Directing my partner of 12 years to kiss another actor PASSIONATELY was new to me, but thank God I was working with Gerry and Jen. They are pros. Check out my "kissing" directions below:

"Ok, let's try it again - you are "smacking" too much. You are making this "smacking" sound. It needs to be quieter even though you are stoned. You have to get kinda caught up in the kiss like you want to climb into the other person. Ok let's try this again.”

And inside I was saying to myself, "This is so bizarre. Crazy."

But it was working. And they nailed the kiss and the embrace. And this is just not my subjective perspective. During a talkback after one of the performances of PAST PERFECT a woman in the audience said " I have never in all my life seen such erotic lust on stage, how did you do it?" Gerry responded with a fiendish grin and said, "Jen and I would come to rehearsal early and practice!" And the audience roared.

Because we loved this show so much, after we closed, we asked Rita if we could do a number of benefits for different LGBTQ organizations around the country, and we went on to do three more benefit weekends Winter Spring 2018. And even after watching PAST PERFECT so many times in performance, it was always fun and such amazing great theatre due to the talents of these amazing actors and Rita's near perfect script.

This is what happens when you bring a play to life. It's magic and it is great, great fun. The collaboration between playwright, director and actors often creates something that is unique and truly magical. And I love that.

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