I came across this interview with Ira Glass, of This American Life, on Slate today.  He is talking about the interviews and storytelling he does on the radio, but I think it applies to most creative endeavors, and something I’ve really had to wrap my head around when walking into a theater to design a show.

Totally. One of the reasons I was interested in doing this interview is because I feel like being wrong is really important to doing decent work. To do any kind of creative work well, you have to run at stuff knowing that it’s usually going to fail. You have to take that into account and you have to make peace with it.

Please excuse the large quote below, but this struck me last night as I curled up in bed with Mamet’s new book of essays on theater.  Often in his writing it feels like provocation is the point, and his functional description of an artistic pursuit seems to be intentionally confrontational.  Yet there is something very true in what he says here.  At the end of the day, especially when in previews, I ask myself a simple question – “Did we make the show better today?”  And sometimes the answer is ‘yes’, sometimes its a push, and sometimes its a resounding ‘no’.  Anyway, onto the quote:

Similarly the job of the designers… is to increase the audience’s enjoyment of the play past that which might be expected in a performance done in street clothes, on a bare stage, under work lights.

This is a very difficult task indeed, for most plays are better enjoyed under such circumstances as anyone who has ever seen a great rehearsal in a rehearsal hall can attest.

Why is this great rehearsal more enjoyable than the vast bulk of designed productions? It allows the audience to use its imagination, which is the purpose of coming to the theatre in the first place.

It takes a real artist to increase the enjoyment of the audience past that which would be found seeing th play on a bare stage, for the first rule of the designer, as of the physician, is do no harm.  And, as with the physician, the rule is quite often observed in the breach.

- David Mamet, Theatre, pg 5-6

One thing I think he definitely gets wrong here is the appeal of the work-light / rehearsal room performance. It’s not the design that ruins it, its the fact its no longer new. My friends Brian Mertes and Melissa Keivman used to host a summer retreat at their house  for forty of their theater friends. Over a week, we would rehearse and stage a Chekov play. At the end of that week, we would perform it in, on, and around their house  for the neighborhood. The Uncle Vanya I did there was one of the most magical shows I’ve worked on.  And so I asked Brian, “Why do we rehearse for five weeks when we can do this in one?”  And he replied, “The other four weeks are so we can do it again.”

Nothing is as exciting as when you walk into the theater and the set, which you haven’t seen yet, is 90 percent finished.  You start to wonder, should we stop here?  Is this more raw and exciting than what we’ve designed?  And the answer is no.  It’s just new to us – so we have a frisson of theatrical excitement.  But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t finish the set, or the costumes, or the lighting, etc etc.  It means we should remember that feeling, try to understand what caused it, and strive as hard as possible to reproduce that in our audiences.

Carnegie Hall/Weill Music Institute

Directed by Susan Fenichell

Lighting by ML Geiger

Video by Dan Scully

Spring 2010

It may be the spectacular views or good wine selection at the concessions table, but Brantley seems in love with the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival. I get a nice shout-out:

And here, ably assisted by Dan Scully’s lighting, he summons a breathtaking series of processions that seem to be conjured from the dusk.

— Author’s Name (Default)

You can catch the full review at The New York Times.  And you can find more information about the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival here.

We had a great run at Danspace at St. Marks, and the crowds and press loved it.  We were literally packed on closing night, with audience sitting upstage of the dancers in the wings.  Here is some of the press we got.

Sarah Cubbage’s handsome, sexy costumes, featuring high-waisted, wide-legged trousers and shirts with cutaway backs, captured Mr. Abraham’s mix of austerity and sensuality. So did Dan Scully’s lighting, which employed a back row of lights close to the floor to spike the quieter overall design with a showbiz atmosphere.

— New York Times, Feb. 26, 2010

As his dancers joined in, often for solos or (sometimes overlapping) duets, there were introspective and disturbing moments—the discomfiture of a body once so in control, losing some of that and finding itself at the mercy of what Abraham called “disconnected synapses” Abraham mentioned when talking about his father.

— New York Press, Feb. 24, 2010

Dan Scully’s lighting design makes everything look good and, while his row of bright stage lights aligned at the rear of the space is a grand, theatrical touch, I most enjoyed his more subtle delineation of areas for dancing, his play of soft light and available shadow (cast by the church’s columns).

— Dance Magazine

Terry Teachout has great things to say about Galileo at Asolo Rep, specifically commenting on the whole design cohesion.  It was a great team (lighting by Peter West, sound by Fabien Obispo, and set and clothes by Clint Ramos), led by a great director, Michael Edwards.  The money quote is:

Yet Michael Donald Edwards’s staging… is not a bare-bones antispectacle but a masterpiece of unified design…. I’ve never seen a handsomer Brecht revival.

— Wall Street Journal, Jan 8. 2010

You can read the whole review here.

Juilliard School, Drama Division.

Directed by Brian Mertes.

Set by Deb O. Clothes by Olivera Gajic.

Lighting and Video by Dan Scully.

Asolo Repertory Theater.
Directed by Melissa Kievman.
Set and Clothes by Clint Ramos.
Lighting and Video by Dan Scully.

NYU Graduate Acting.

Directed by Brian Mertes.

Sets by Greg Mitchell. Clothes by Becky Lasky.

Lighting by Dan Scully.

2006.

Group dance concert @ The Merce Cunningham Studios

Lighting by Dan Scully.