My directing aesthetic is built from three key components: Queer, scholarship, and collaboration. I seek to craft an experience for the community as a way to engage with and support cultural sustainability through nuanced provocation. For me, theatre artists are librarians who use performance to both proliferate and protect stories, voices, and myths.
While it has taken many years to fully admit this (really, up to now), my aesthetic is first and foremost Queer. My artistry is intrinsically tied to my Queerness. Throughout my academic and professional work, I have attempted numerous times to define my style or aesthetic. I never felt that I ever succeeded. I was vague; I meandered around my intention, distracting with five-dollar words that left the reader only knowing that I can use a thesaurus. But recently, after deep interrogation into myself both as an artist and blood-fueled human, I can say my work is Queer. By “Queer”, I mean not just Queer stories – narratives that I have not yet had the stage space to explore. I define Queer as celebratory, subversive, joyous, revolutionary, inclusive, and theatrical. For me, these words do not just define my personal ethos as living Queer but have become rooted within my stagecraft.
While it has taken many years to fully admit this (really, up to now), my aesthetic is first and foremost Queer. My artistry is intrinsically tied to my Queerness. Throughout my academic and professional work, I have attempted numerous times to define my style or aesthetic. I never felt that I ever succeeded. I was vague; I meandered around my intention, distracting with five-dollar words that left the reader only knowing that I can use a thesaurus. But recently, after deep interrogation into myself both as an artist and blood-fueled human, I can say my work is Queer. By “Queer”, I mean not just Queer stories – narratives that I have not yet had the stage space to explore. I define Queer as celebratory, subversive, joyous, revolutionary, inclusive, and theatrical. For me, these words do not just define my personal ethos as living Queer but have become rooted within my stagecraft.
Next, my directing aesthetic is rooted in scholarship. I value the use of research within my practice. From theories, articles, and history, I often look to records of the past to help inform my choices. Like with everything, however, this scholarly penchant is a tool to be used with efficacy. Whenever it becomes obtuse, cumbersome, or irrelevant, I close the book. While I know many artists shutter at academia, I find it exciting to parse through the past. For me, it is part of my homework before I enter the room. I have learned so much about and from the past experts, maestros, and revolutionaries, I would feel impious to disregard the “cloud of witnesses” that stand behind me. Like with my Queerness, this appreciation for academic insight has become a recent revelation. I have been fortunate enough to travel and live abroad. I have experienced a wide range of theatrical expressions outside of the European and American Modernism I became accustomed to early on; yet that genre and style will also carry firm within me, despite the current proclivity to rebel against it. I am bilingual and through that skill have read so much outside of the Anglophonic canon. This global sensibility has instilled a compulsion to stay informed. I try to learn as much as I can about what is happening in the world around me. I see now that my curiosity to learn has sustained my drive to honor and celebrate stories through my craft.
Lastly, unapologetic collaboration is the final core aspect of my directorial aesthetic. While this has become a buzzword around many rehearsal spaces lately, I utilize the word through synergizing creativity around me. I try to instill ownership of the work created in the room. But rather than that being individual ownership, it is collective ownership from the cast and creative team. By doing so, I strive to create a space where the artists can bring their ideas and spirit to the agreed-upon story. I value all ideas that we as a group create together, what is best for our artistry. I am no actor or designer, so I need artists who can bring their thoughts and style to the room. Stanislavski talked about the “Artistic Condition”, a state of being primed for creative output. I have morphed this concept into my main task as a director: to lead a room where the artists are opened and engaged to generate options, answers, and opinions. It is only then that I can engage from the outside, editing, stitching, and supporting the story we are telling. My artistry thrives when I edit in three dimensions.
I do not see the director as a stage magician, as it has often been described to me, but as a stage alchemist. Magicians operate in a world of illusion and obfuscation. I guide performative experiences rooted within a real, tangible world. While my world may be formed from a line of text, a wisp of smoke, or just a well-placed chair, it is just as real as you or me.
Another Revolution by Jacqueline Bircher | Photo by Kaitlin Randolph
Circle Mirror Transformation by Annie Baker | Photo by Jared Tseng
Circle Mirror Transformation by Annie Baker | Photo by Jared Tseng