Interview with Brett Love

Brett Love is easy to recognize. He has a badass beard and carries his motorcycle helmet with him when he attends performances. He also self identifies as "giant," in reference to his definitely above-average height, so he's hard to miss. He's also an astoundingly regular feature in Seattle audiences. I knew he saw a lot of shows, but I had no idea just how many. After we both attended the first Blood Ensemble theatre salon discussion group, I learned that he's also well-spoken and opinionated, so I thought it would be fun to pick the brain of the guy who sees more plays than just about anyone in this city. 

INTRODUCTION

Beau: Hi, Brett!

Brett: Hi Beau.

Beau: How many plays do typically see a week?

Brett: Over the last four years I've been to an average of 4 and a half events a week, but that also includes music, film, and dance. But the bulk of it is theatre, so my best guess would be 3 a week for plays.

Beau: If you can give me an average that includes a .5, it seems like you must keep pretty close track of what you see.

Brett: Yes, I keep a yearly list on Facebook. If you go to my profile and look at the notes there are lists for 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013. I also have a top ten shows of the year for 2010, 11, and 12.

Beau: So, is 2010 when you started keeping track? Or is it when you made some kind of commitment to being a very consistent patron of the arts?

Brett: Both really. I had been seeing the occasional play before that, but in the spring of 2010 I saw the single greatest piece of entertainment I have ever seen: KT Niehoff's A Glimmer Of Hope Or Skin Or Light. That show is what set me on this crazy path. From that point I've just gone to see more and more in every form and style I can find.

Beau: What got you to see that particular show?

Brett: All of the goings on leading up to it. KT had a bunch of different events that were pre-cursors to the actual show at ACT. Somehow I stumbled across them on the internet and I got curious. So, I threw caution to the wind and went just to see what would happen. Here's a link to the Glimmer page. 

Beau: Without making you give a review, can you tell me something about that show that made such an impression on you?

Brett: It was unlike anything I had ever seen before, or have seen since, and the relationship with the audience was such a primary focus. That made it fascinating. It was also done in such a way that you could see it again and have a completely different experience. Which is why I saw it all three weekends it played.

Beau: Wow!

Brett: I'm just a smidge obsessed with it. I still carry all three of those tickets with me everywhere I go. Which isn't creepy. Right?

Beau: Nah. What were you doing with your free evenings before you started attending performances so consistently?

Brett: Watching a lot more TV. I spent about 7 years writing for AOL and CliqueClack about television as a side gig. I think I've written over a million words about television actually. Which is a little mind-boggling.

Beau: Damn. But it also means that you're a more engaged audience member, I would think, as a critical thinker and so on, because of that

Brett: I think so. It lets me look at things in a different way. But it's also why I don't really review theatre. I became a bit jaded about television.

Beau: So how much TV do you watch these days?

Brett: Not nearly as much. I have a few favorite shows that I see all the episodes of, but it's nothing like it was then where I was following multiple shows every night. Now I might go all week without actually being home to watch anything.

Beau: What's a play you'd like to see, that you've heard of or read, etc, that you haven't seen or that hasn't been done here?

Brett: The play I most want to see produced at the moment is Stephanie Timm's Redress Party.

Beau: Why?

Brett: It's just a really great script. It's funny to start, and it takes this really bizarre turn that gets a little bit creepy. And it's got four or five really great parts in it.

That's from the quite likely to happen file. If I'm being all crazy, I really want to see a gender-swapped True West. So, Lee and Austin are sisters.

Beau: That's probably more what I was looking for, and that's really intriguing!

Brett: Why for True West? I think that play would be fascinating if you saw all of that craziness coming from two women.

Beau: And is Redress in development?

Brett: Yes, Stephanie just had another reading of it last weekend as part of the Seattle Rep Writers Group.

Beau: Where did the True West idea come from?

Brett: I saw a really good production of it at Balagan a few years ago and became a fan of the play. Then later I heard about Seattle Public doing Rosencrantz and Guildenstern with two actresses in those parts and I thought, that sounds good. But I would much rather see that happen with True West.

Beau: Really, Shepherd's other works aside, one thing I really strongly associate with that play is a very strong masculine dynamic, what they talk about, the way they talk, and so on, that would be really affected with gender flipped casting.

Brett: It would. I think one of the challenges would be how much, or how little, it's changed to fit the swap.

Beau: What's the most successful gender flip you've seen?

Brett: For one part, I thought Dayo Anderson was fantastic as Hamlet. I had some other issues with that particular production, but was captivated by her performance.

Beau: So, other than True West, since you mentioned it, what's a show that you've seen, and maybe even liked, but that you want to see a different version of?

Brett: Oh, another that comes to mind is Danielle Daggerty as River Phoenix in c.1993.

Possibly not what you are looking for, but I'm always up to see a new version of Rocky Horror. Open Circle did a version a couple years ago that went really dark with it, and I thought it was received pretty well.

Oh, here ya go. Poona The Fuckdog. I would really like to see someone tackle that again.

Beau: What's the farthest you've gone to see a show?

Brett: I took a motorcycle trip to see Montana Shakespeare in the Parks. I caught the one night the tour snuck into Washington. So, right at the Washington/Idaho border.

Beau: What'd you see?

Brett: Much Ado About Nothing. After that it would be Bellingham to see My Fair Lady.

Beau: What show would you say you've seen the most?

Brett: I think it would be Rocky Horror. I saw that by Open Circle, The Schoolyard, ArtsWest, Second Story, and the Can Can Castaways.

Beau: Is there a runner up?

Brett: I saw Glimmer and BJ A Musical Romp three times each. Oh, and I saw Balagan’s Dr. Horrible three times. Twice at Balagan, once at ACT.

Beau: What was the last show you went out of your way to see a second time?

Brett: Undo.

Beau: I assume that's still your favorite show of the year thus far?

Brett: I'm debating it. It's neck and neck with Marie Chouinard's Rites Of Spring at the moment.

Beau: Both definitely in your top ten for 2013, though I take it?

Brett: Yes, they are 1A and 1B at the moment. I actually keep the top ten list as I go through the year so I don't discount things that appeared in the early part of the year.

Beau: Very sensible. Can you talk about those two shows a bit, why they made such an impression?

Brett: Undo is just a fabulously written play. It's a really simple idea that you get immediately, but you're still so curious to see how it's going to play out. And they cast it really well. There were a lot of great performances in it.

And Rites Of Spring is just something that you have to see to believe. It's magical to gaze upon. And this production was helped by having the UW orchestra playing live with them. To give you an idea of the imagery.

Beau: Is there a show that got away?

Brett: I think there was one Tuesday, actually. Amy O’Neal curated a night of dance performances for SIDF that was full of my favorite dancers, but I was not up to going out.

In theatre, I don't think so. Generally, the runs are long enough that I do eventually make it to all the shows I want to see.

Beau: Is there a particular company or theater in town that you regularly have higher hopes or expectations of than others?

Brett: Probably On The Boards. Although that is more higher hopes with lowered expectations. The nature of what they do makes it really hit and miss. Usually, over the course of the year I'll find a couple OtB shows at the top of my list, and at least one way down at the bottom.

Beau: And that's the nature of the risks they take?

Brett: Yeah, they swing for the fences. There is no worry about whether or not it's actually going to work, or if it's something the audience will like. They pick the shows and put them up and let the cards fall where they may. So you end up getting things on the stage there that you can't see anywhere else in town. And when it works, it's amazing. But the price is that occasionally, something is going to miss. I think we come out ahead in the end for it though, and I wouldn't have them change a thing.

Beau: Would you say they're taking the most risks at the moment, then?

Brett: Yeah, if you consider the wide canyon between something like Catherine Cabeen's Fire, a dance piece that was so polished and perfect, and False Peach, theatre run amok. You are not going to find that kind of variety and experimentation anywhere else.

Beau: Totally. What range of shows do you go to? Do you go to the 5th? Do you go to high school or college stuff?

Brett: My general rule is that I will go see anything. I don't rule anything out because of who is doing it or where it is, but there are only so many days you can go see a show. The range goes from the 5th, down to a 4th grade production in north Seattle.

I've been to a few high school shows as well, and some of the UW Drama stuff.

Beau: What was the 4th grade show?

Brett: Stranded. The story of a soccer team that crash lands on an island in the Bermuda Triangle. Written and performed by the 4th grade class.

They even made the posters. 

Beau: And how did you wind up there?

Brett: It was part of Macha Monkey's Monkey Works program. I'm on their board, so when I heard about it I had to see what this would be. It was really fun.

Beau: Do you have other specific involvement in theater, like being on MM's board?

Brett: I'm a nominator for the Gregory Awards, and I am one of the Live Girls' Peeps, meaning that I volunteer for them, because the Live Girls are awesome.

Beau: So does that mean you have Gregory stuff in mind when you see a lot of the shows you see?

Brett: Well, kind of. The way the nominator process works means I am not scoring every show I see for the awards. Only a certain number of nominators will score a given show. So I am only scoring the shows that I am assigned, which is less than a tenth of the shows I actually see.

Of course, the way the mind works, you are always comparing and contrasting things in your head either way.

Beau: How long have you been doing the gregories?

Brett: This is my second year. I would have to check the rules, but I believe that you can be a nominator for up to three years.

Beau: How well do you feel the awards represent seattle's theater for any given year?

Brett: I thing they do as good a job as any awards system does. Given the nature of theatre, or art in general, we're all going to like different things. I think Kittens In A Cage was the best show in town last year. You probably disagree. Neither of us are wrong. So the Gregory's are taking on an impossible task, and handling it as well as can be expected.

Beau: Are there cases when shows like Kittens get passed over because they're too fringey or risky, like you said the OTB stuff is?

Brett: I wouldn't say passed over. That's actually something that the new nominator system is designed to prevent. The way it works now is that every show has the same chance to be scored, regardless of whether it's fringe, or at the Rep, or a big 5th Ave musical.

But I still think that the nature of a show being fringe probably means that it has less chance at an award, simply because it is fringe. If it was the thing that the most people liked, it wouldn't be fringe, right?

Beau: What space do you like the most or feel the most welcome or comfortable in?

Brett: Well, my favorite space is Annex, simply because I have seen more of my favorite shows there than anywhere else. Not just from them, but as rentals as well.

I'm not really picky about the accommodations if I'm going to see something great.

I once went to a hole in the wall space and sat on a wooden bench at 2 a.m. on a Wednesday because I was going to see two dancers I really like work together.

Beau: That is some commitment

Brett: Yep, and it was really cool.

Beau: Why 2 a.m.?

Brett: It was part of a project Jessie Smith was doing. She was bringing different artists to work with all day. They would come in, rehearse something, then open it up for a public performance. Then another artist would come in, create something, etc. It worked out that the version I really wanted to see was at 2am.

It was called Trios.

Beau: Anything you'd like to add or something you would like to talk about?

Brett: Nothing really comes to mind, other than I would encourage everyone to go see something out of the blue for no other reason than to see what happens. Sometimes, that's where you find the really good stuff.

Two Rooms Highlights

We’ve done a lot of review of Two Rooms since we finished our run in Seattle, especially building up to and after our final performance down in Lakewood. We’re particularly grateful to the Lakewood Playhouse folks for hosting us, and to Alex Smith, Dylan Twiner, John Munn, and Larry Hagerman for putting us up, helping us, and makings things run smoothly. 

Now that we’re all done, I wanted to specifically preserve some of the things from this show that will stick with me. 

I will remember lots of things fondly, like us doing karaoke or Taryn’s propensity to stand on things or “gargoyle”, the red pandas, and everything else, but this post is for reflections are on the show, the process, and the commitment more than anything, I think. 

The actors put up with me throwing empty Gatorade bottles at them, and even embraced it enough that it became a thing, with them returning fire during rehearsals. 

Technically, there were many moments when everything synched up, when Taylor "Swoop" Buhrman drew the lights down at just the right moment, and the performers on stage were framed just so, spectacularly. We had a wonderful window light at Lakewood that cast magnificent shadows. There were moments of kismet when a blackout just PUNCHED a line of dialogue. There were the times when Taylor played prophet and hit the go button on the sound while the actors were still talking, so the instant they were done the music started to come up. It speaks of his familiarity with the show, his comfort with it, but also strongly of the magic of theater, and how being open, willing, and engaged, you can get out of the way and let it take you. 

During the final performance, I helped Scott take his shackles off. He never let me help them put them on, it was part of his process, but every night I helped him clean off his makeup and such for his final appearance, and the first thing we did was take the manacles off. Every night he lost arm hair because of the sticky blood gel, but on Sunday, he had them fastened so tight that I’d unscrewed a bolt about a centimeter before the metal finally let go of his skin. And slowly peeled away. Not from the blood goo, but because of sweat and pressure and what he’d chosen to put himself through for two hours. 

I don’t want you to think that means Scott is method either, he took his hood off backstage to get some fresh air, and so on, but having a concrete reminder, a consciously present thing to remind you of what you’re doing and who you are can be helpful, and his commitment to that really struck me. 

Taryn made some discoveries with Walker that came from the ending scenes. And then all of a sudden who she was starting the show as didn’t work anymore, the progress from where she started and where she ended was disrupted, it wasn’t an arc. She had to remove a brashness that we’d been working with before. Wasn't wrong or right, just had to come from a different place. And she couldn’t figure it out. And we tried some different tricks, pushed things this way and that, and she wasn’t happy because it wasn’t clicking. And she got more and more frustrated. Eventually we stopped, we talked about it, and decided to do something else and come back to it. And when we did it worked out perfectly. 

But my takeaway from that wasn’t just that she was taking it seriously, but that I could see real, visceral frustration, if not outright anguish that things weren't lining up right. The fact that she was so engaged, so committed to this show to find that so difficult really said just how seriously she was taking her role and all its facets.

There’s only one small scene in the script when Ellen and Michael talk. They never meet in real life, so it’s clear that Ellen is imagining Michael. They talk about whether she dreams about the hostages she’s “responsible” for. The script says that Lainie leaves the room, and when Ellen tries to, Michael blocks the door, and they talk.

We’d been playing with dynamics of the show all over already. For example, one of the most intimate scenes, when Lainie and Scott really talk for the first time, we did very antagonistically for the auditions, just to push the range of the actors and to see how far they could go in an opposite direction and so on. I do such things in rehearsals too, play a scene strongly in a non-obvious way, or even the opposite way, to break a pattern or look for something fresh.

So between the three of us, we tried a power exchange, and had Ellen be a “hostage” for a few lines, made Michael her captor. And I kept making sure Julia was comfortable with it, because it was pretty early in the rehearsal process, and all of a sudden we were putting a pillow case over her head, and Scott was tilting her backward, blind, while she hung onto a chair. I’d have been terrified. Every time I checked she said things like, “I trust you,” “It’s okay,” “Let’s do it,” and so on. I expect that of people I’ve worked with before, or late in the rehearsal process when everyone’s comfortable. To be that gutsy in an early rehearsal with people you’re still getting to know...honestly, it kind of took my breath away.

I almost hate to admit it, but a part of me, in the theater context, really likes making, or at least helping, performers cry. Turns out I’m pretty good at it. And some actors don’t need the help, of course, but you never know. There was only one scene where Brittni really needed a push, and when we got there, I asked her if she wanted help and she pretty much gave me carte blanche to get her there. It takes a certain kind of bravery to do that, to want that, to ask for it. I put my forehead against hers and quietly told her how alone she was, how long her husband had been gone, how much she was in limbo, how much she wished her husband was dead just so she knew something for a fact instead of waiting and worrying and not knowing anything. I took one minute and verbally isolated her as much as I could. And it was what she needed and she went right out and rocked that scene. 

I’ve realized in the last couple of weeks that I have a specific pet peeve regarding feeling like people don’t take me seriously. Looking back, it’s clear that at least part of how impressive all these things were to me was just how seriously these actors took the work, the show, the process, and me. The other aspect of this is I’m always struck and impressed by things I don’t or can’t do. I don’t know that I could have or would have wanted to dig as deep as these performers did, as they did consistently even, and kept coming back for more. It was a humbling thing to see, and I’m exceptionally proud of all of them, and very fortunate to have had the privilege of working with them. 

Being in a Play

I know that some people are absolutely terrified of the stage. I was staggered to find out that there are some people who act IN SPITE of this crippling fear, to the degree that they may vomit before going on stage. I knew that fear existed. I had no idea there were actors who embraced it and triumphed over it.

So that got me thinking, because I'm always a bit narrow in my perceptions. For some reason I always assume that everyone has the same experience as me, or that no one could possibly understand my experience, there's never a middle ground. I have to keep reminding myself to look for one.

So pretty clear, not everyone has the same experience of being in a play, or involved in a play, as I do. I asked some of my very talented friends to share what their experience of being on stage is like.

For me, as a director, it's like building a temporary family. Even when people get along in different ways or on different levels, you're still a unit. Sometimes it's just like being the engineer on a runaway locomotive, you just hope to stay on the tracks and arrive at the right place intact.

As an actor, I'll use a really big metaphor. Preparing for a show is like spending months doing breathing exercises to try to break a world record where you hold your breath longer than anyone else. You try new things, you expand your lung's capacity, maybe you hurt yourself, maybe you learn better how your body works, other people tell you how THEY breathe, and so on. But it's not till opening night that you really get to do what you've been practicing for. The lights go down, and you realize that you've been holding your breath by accident, and you don't know for how long. Then the lights start to come up, you take a deep breath, there's a head rush and then... you see what happens....

Scott C. Brown most recently played Michael in our production of Two Rooms and will be seen this fall in Someone Who'll Watch Over Me. He has also been seen as Salieri in Amadeus, McMurphy in Cuckoo's Nest, and Flynn the Bard/Leo in Gamers films. He handles IT and does a lot of support work for Confrontational Theater Project. 

Being in a play is, for me, a chance to tell a story. I am not much of a writer of my own words, but to take the words of a playwright, and to perform those for an audience, to give them life, is a great honor and responsibility. It is getting to crawl into the skin of another person, or as I like to believe, it is letting "that" part of me out for a short time to live. It allows me to experience, in some small degree, a life I could have lived, might have lived. It allows me to communicate to the audience a story that someone has written to tell. And there is a great sense of responsibility in that, to do justice to the words, the story. I hope that my performances are true to the playwright's intent and vision, and most times, I don't know if that's true because they aren't there. But I try to give to each role a sense of honesty and truth that I can only hope rings faithful to the intent of the author. It is the job of the actors and director to bring that out, to the best of our ability. It is a privilege to be able to do that.

Thomas Brophy runs the Seattle Theatre Readers (theatrereaders.com) and was a featured performer in Confrontational's Veteran's Day Project. His next project is The Purification Process. 

Being in a play is like planting a garden; it starts out with seeds going in the ground. Rehearsal is the care of the new crop and then opening night is the harvest. It's a gentle but amazing process to be in a play. There's no feeling quite like working on a project with your little microcosm of a community, comprised of actors, producers, director, and the playwright and building something from scratch. Seeing it all unfold and laughing, crying and working your ass off and then it always amazes me to see it all come together. And then I get to work off my partners on stage in real time. It's a mash up of joy, fear, elation, terror and love all under one giant umbrella. It's a beautiful thing. 

Megan Jackson played Beatrice in Paper Bullets in the spring for Ghost Light Theatricals, and she was just seen in a short piece by Pony World at Northwest New Works at On The Boards. She is one of the founders and directors of Blood Ensemble, who are developing a contribution to a piece this winter for STAGERight.

Performing a play feels a lot like a game of Tetris. You're constantly assessing a slightly different version of something you think you know coming at you and deciding what to do with it. You take the briefest moment to live with what is either flush or decidedly not (which can be interesting, too) and then look to what's headed your way next.

Dayo Anderson recently played Hamlet at Ghost Light Theatricals, and is one of the founders and directors of Blood Ensemble.

Being in a play is like having the most fun ever at a masquerade ball. You are someone else for a few hours... and in that time, you are free to do what someone totally unlike you might do. It's your one chance to literally wear someone else's shoes... but they happen to fit your feet quite nicely. Being in a play is also a lot of moments where you're not actually on stage and your main prerogative is to maintain a high energy level for when you ARE on stage. It's waiting in the wings, listening to your friends say their lines. It's doing a 20 minute scene you've practiced every day for a few months, and then it's over. Being in a play is like a sport where you are either on the field acting, or on the bench waiting to act. Except you know exactly where you're supposed to move, what you're supposed to say, and exactly what your opponent is going to do. Most of the time. :)



So there you go, five different perspectives on exactly what it's like. If we get a bunch more from other actors, we'll do a second edition, I'm sure. 

Two Rooms Wrapup

Well, it's not actually over, of course, we are fortunate enough to have added one more show down at the Lakewood Playhouse. We have a lot of friends in the South Sound area, and had quite a few folks make the trip up for Two Rooms over the weekend, so we're looking forward to getting to share the show with lots more folks. Visit tworoomslakewood.brownpapertickets.com for more details.

Our audiences this weekend were very responsive, enthusiastic, and clearly made a great effort to show up on time. Ideally, starting shows at 8 p.m. helps with that, but when we started on time more than once, and never started particularly late, that's really super encouraging!

Speaking of encouraging, we're getting to the point where we are now considering adding more performances for our shows next year. This will get us more reviews, more word of mouth, and ideally, get us eligible for the Gregory Awards. At least, that's what we're talking about. But it'll also be more expensive, of course. How well our fall show, Someone Who'll Watch Over Me (which is a companion piece to Two Rooms) goes, will affect that decision, as well.

Some of these were posted to Facebook, but I made a list on the blackboard in the lobby at Eclectic of some of the great complimentary adjectives that we got. I'm sure I'll forget someone, but these came from Trin, Dayo, Brett, Helen, Karen, Amberlee, Ashley, and Alec.

Electric
Fascinating
Elegant and Relevant
Heart-breaking in the best way
Awesome show
Magnificent
Perfect casting
Fantastic
I've seen a lot of shows...And this is the best show I've ever seen.

One of my best friends, who is politically conservative, had an amazing takeaway from the show, which let me know we're doing good work. He said that the play made him think of the women in Iraq whose husbands' whereabouts are unknown, because of the actions of Americans. The hostages that we presently hold. All through the process of putting this play together, such a thing never occurred to me, and it was a very sobering realization. And a very true one.

We were also INCREDIBLY fortunate enough to be joined by Terry Edward Moore, one of the two actors who originated the role of Michael when the play was brand new. He stayed for the Q&A session we had that night, asked some intelligent questions, and had some really kind things to say. It was also beyond humbling for all involved.

At the end of the day (or the week as in this case), there's often some post-partum depression after putting on a show, especially for me. When you operate at the scale that we do, which is to say, not quite a one-man band, but with minimal staff, sometimes as the director you don't even realize how much of your emotional energy you sank into a show until you're hiding backstage weeping. Somehow I always forget that going into performance week, and it always sneaks up on me. This time, I could track part of my emotional overload to one very specific thing, however: We worked hard. We got reactions, really powerful ones, as noted above. And that makes me wish that a lot more people had seen the show. Seats were empty, which means there were lives we could have touched, but didn't get to.