Behind-the-Scenes: A Marriage Between Props and Lighting

Allie Gillaspie-Williams and Steven Williams

Onstage, Bekah Brunstetter’s Going to a Place where you Already Are looks at the relationships and love of two couples—older Joe and Roberta and younger Ellie and Jonas. Backstage, Props Master Allie Gillaspie-Williams and Electrician/Board Operator Steven Williams not only have a working relationship, they also are married. And soon to be first-time parents.

If you turn a set upside and shake it, anything that falls out is a prop. As props shop manager, Allie communicates closely with the scenic designer about all the props that make their way to stage. The shop team’s work includes building specialty furniture pieces, shopping for the right fabric to reupholster chairs and sofas, and even making fake food.

This is Steven’s first season at SCR. His work in the Argyros Stage includes hanging the lights for each show and then programming them according to what the lighting designer has created for the production. During the run of the show, he makes sure that the design’s integrity is maintained and he ensures that the equipment remains in good working order.

Steven’s career in theatre started by accident. As an accounting major at Calvin College in Michigan, he needed one more credit and an opportunity at the Calvin Theatre Company caught his eye. He never turned back.

“There was a family atmosphere,” Steven recalls. “I loved people’s willingness to help despite the complexity of the show, despite the hours and despite the popularity of the show. The fact that we were doing work together and having our own utopian experience was what made me want to stay in theatre.”

He earned an MFA in lighting design from Virginia Tech and divided his time between freelance lighting and work at Maine’s Ogunquit Playhouse. He later programmed lighting for the national tour of Hairspray.

Allie began working in local community theatres around the age of 12, helping sew costumes, paint scenery, make small props and working backstage. She earned an MFA in properties design and management and spent time working at the Ogunquit Playhouse and as a prop master and carpenter in the Boston area. She also helped found a small fringe theatre company in Providence, R.I.

During the final week of rehearsal for Going to a Place where you Already Are, Allie and Steven talked about why they love theatre and the challenges and opportunities of their work.

Where and when did you two meet?

Steven: We met in Salem, Mass., in the summer of 2006. Allie was the costume designer for the Student Theatre Ensemble’s production of The Who’s Tommy and I was the assistant lighting designer.

Allie: I’m a sucker for rock musicals and they didn’t have a costume designer, so I volunteered. The lighting designer was a good friend of mine.

What was the first stage production that you saw?

Steven: The Nutcracker, at age 4 or 5, at the Wang Theatre, now the Citi Performing Arts Center in Boston. I will always remember the Sugar Plum fairies and the height that they were able to jump and how beautiful the lights were. Until I worked in theatre, I always wondered how the tree and the scenery came together. When I got older, I began working on shows at that theatre until I moved to Virginia in 2012.

Allie: A Christmas Carol, in first or second grade, at the North Shore Music Theatre in Beverly, Mass. That particular production has always had a lot of flash—the theatre is in the round, so it’s fairly immersive, there are pyrotechnics, and the ghost of Marley flies. My first full-time, professional theatre job was also at that theatre.

Paul David Story and Mark Harelik in SCR's 2016 production of Red.

Lawrence Kao, Sab Shimono and Ryun Yu in SCR's 2015 world premiere of tokyo fish story.

SCR's 2015 production of Peter and the Starcatcher.

What are the most challenging and fun aspects of your work?

Steven: The most challenging aspect of my job is communication between multiple collaborators. I have to be able to adapt to each of their styles of work. The most fun is seeing the different design styles. I try to learn from all the designers and see the different techniques that they utilize. I talk with them about their place in the theatre world and try to find my niche inside of theirs.

Allie: Artists often have strong opinions and it can sometimes be challenging to get everyone on the same page. The most fun part of my job is the hands-on work. I love to build and sew and solve the strange problems that make their way into a prop shop. With tokyo fish story, I had to create a fake octopus that would look alive with the slightest movement from the actor. For Red, our shop had to invent a paint recipe that could be added to and painted with onstage, but also could be washed out of clothing. No two shows are ever the same so it’s pretty difficult to get bored.

Do you have any special work-related memories?

Steven: At North Shore Music Theatre in Beverly, Mass., I had the opportunity to work with B.B King. He was using a wheelchair, but wanted to walk to the stage. I helped him into a little lift known as a “slip stage,” so he could ride up to the main stage. I was able to catch him when he started to fall as he stepped off the lift. After the concert, Mr. King and his guards stopped to thank me for my professional attitude, given the situation. He later told me that, “professionalism will always lead to success.”

Allie: I have a lot of “you had to be there” kind of memories.

What’s been your favorite SCR production?

Allie: Peter and the Starcatcher. It was a ton of fun to work on in the prop shop and it also is just a really wonderful story.

What’s next on the horizon?

Steven: We are expecting our first child in May—and I am really excited about this next act in our lives!

Allie: It is super exciting! But, beyond that, it’s hard to say; we tend to be fairly flexible about what life brings us!

Talking With the Director and Playwright About "Future Thinking"

Heidi Dippold, Jud Willford, director Lila Neugebauer, Arye Gross, Virginia Vale, Enver Gjokaj and playwright Eliza Clark on the first day of rehearsal for Future Thinking.

What happens when playwright Eliza Clark and director Lila Neugebauer get together? Right now, they talk (with laughter, deep thoughts and a shared vision) about the upcoming world premiere of Clark’s Future Thinking. The play follows the story of pet photographer, Peter, who is an obsessed stalker-fan of Chiara, the young star of a hugely popular fantasy TV show.

What’s the play about?

ELIZA CLARK: I was a child actor, so I’ve always been interested in writing a story about that world, but it was hard for me to access it from the inside. I needed to approach the story through an “outsider” like Peter (Arye Gross) so that I could write about some of my own experiences. However, I am not Chiara and my mother is nothing like Crystal! (laughs)

I started writing it after I went to Comic Con because I found the world of fandom so interesting: the idea of escapism, fantasy and feeling like you’re part of something that you’re really not. The play is about fantasy, expectations and the idea that sometimes we believe that we’re going to live a life at some future point that looks nothing like the life we live now. It’s also about parents and children, like the mother and daughter [Crystal and Chiara]. These are two people who have lived together, have been each other’s best friend and only touchstone, but in some ways, they don’t know each other at all.

LILA NEUGEBAUER: Future Thinking also is about the ways we attempt to get our needs met—often through people who function as surrogates. It’s about what happens when the people we rely on most to fulfill our needs are people with whom we’re not really connecting or communicating authentically.

How has the play been developed?

EC: It has been great to work on it through the Pacific Playwrights Festival and a weeklong in-house workshop [at SCR]. The biggest benefit for me has been working with Lila over time on Future Thinking. We’ve also had the opportunity to work with some of the actors who are now in the production.

Tell us about humor in the play.

LN: Eli and I have known each since we were 18 and have been working on plays together since 2005. (Don’t tell anyone, but I once acted in a play that Eli wrote and directed at the New York Fringe Festival!) Her particular comic mode is singular and idiosyncratic: think high-stakes screwball comedy that’s totally grounded in character psychology.

EC: The humor comes from the fact that all these characters take themselves so seriously. I hope that the play will be gritty, real, dark and funny throughout. There’s nobody better to make that happen than Lila; I think she understands my tone better than anyone I’ve worked with.

What’s the take-away for audiences after they see Future Thinking?

LN: Call your kid, call your parent and have an honest conversation about who you are now—not who you both were in those formative childhood years. Chiara is a kid who has both grown up much too quickly, had to be a kind of adult professional from a very early age, but also hasn’t grown up at all. She and her mother are grappling with roles they’ve each played—for and with one another—since early on; they’re struggling to change and to more authentically relate in the face of long-ingrained patterns and dynamics.

Future Thinking run March 25-April 24, 2016, on the Segerstrom Stage.

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Witches, Magic and...Virtual Reality?

SCR’s Junior Players are crafting a magical world on stage in their production of The Witches by Roald Dahl and adapted by David Wood. The Junior Players, chosen by audition after at least two years with SCR’s Theatre Conservatory, are guided by Mercy Vasquez.Teem Players and Summer Players productions happen in the spring and summer.

Vasquez, who teaches the Junior Players during the school year, directs their annual production, knows very well the importance of training. She's studied at UCLA; in London at King’s College; the American Academy of Dramatic Arts; and in the Acting Intensive Program, part of SCR’s Theatre Conservatory. Her performance credits include productions at SCR, Garden Grove Playhouse and Heritage Square Theater.

Throughout the rehearsal process, Vasquez works to bring a rich experience to her students. With plenty of support in makeup, costumes, scenery and more, the Junior Players gain hands-on experience working on a full-scale production. This year, she is adding another element to the mix: virtual reality—sort of.

SCR Hair and Makeup Technician Gillian Woodson does a makeup demo for the Junior Players with students (R to L) Caitlyn Roum and Sasa Klein.

“I thought it would be interesting to have the essence of the children the witches transform to remain visible on stage,” says Vasquez. “The idea came to me to have the mice [former children] depicted as virtual reality mice. The cast had to work together to move in sync to create these characters. It involves a marriage between movement, cooperation and vulnerability.”

Vasquez worked with the four student actors to simulate the effect of virtual reality as they follow and mimic the movements of the others. As two of the actors are upstage portraying the mice their characters have become, the actors downstage are their former human selves. Through their lines and movement, the actors take cues from each other to create these synchronized characters.

Work like this reinforces the sense of ensemble, which is a big lesson to learn as students participate in the Junior Players.

“There are no stars,” says Vasquez. “Everyone is crucial to telling the story. They are learning to be generous actors in this process by waiting their turn and making the most of their time on stage.”

With that, there may be an even more important lesson for the players. Learning how to have fun and play—a discovery Vasquez wasn’t quite expecting from her young students.

“Bringing small handheld puppets to life was another interesting challenge because the actors weren’t used to playing this way,” she says. “In this world of gaming, actual toys have taken a backseat to the virtual world. I really had to teach them how to play! They had to work hard at keeping the puppet characters alive.”

The Junior Players present the magic of what they’ve rehearsed March 12-20, 2016 in the Nicholas Studio.

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From the Playwright and Director: Julia Cho and Neel Keller Talk About "Office Hour"

Playwright Julia Cho.  Photo by Jennie Warren.

Betsy Brandt and Leo Marks in SCR's 2010 world premiere production of The Language Archive.

Linda Gehringer and Toi Perkins in SCR's 2007 world premiere of The Piano Teacher.

Office Hour is the third Julia Cho play to premiere at South Coast Repertory, after The Piano Teacher (2007) and The Language Archive (2010). Her new work, an SCR commission, is the story of a college teacher dealing with a student who frightens her. The cast includes Sandra Oh, Raymond Lee, Corey Brill and Sola Bamis. In this conversation, Cho and director Neel Keller talk about the play’s genesis and more.

What inspired you to write Office Hour?

JULIA CHO: The subject had been on my mind ever since the [2007] Virginia Tech shootings, which stuck with me, in part, because the shooter was Korean. I did not want to write a play about it, but I wanted somebody to write about it. Nothing came out, so I thought, well maybe I should write it.

I felt that the most responsible thing to do would be to write it as nonfiction, maybe interview people who were there and explore it like a documentary. I quickly learned that was not my forte, so I put it away for a few years.

Then I read an essay by a university teacher who had a student that scared her. That really clicked with me because, as a graduate student, I had spent time teaching undergrads. I remembered that time of my life very easily and could completely see the scenario. That was what got me to write the play.

How did you choose the structure when you wrote Office Hour?

JC: I wanted this to be a classic, two-person, one-set drama, but I couldn’t write it. In the story, once the student sat down with the teacher, I would write a little bit of dialogue, but it felt contrived, like I was forcing them to say things to each other.

Increasingly, when I start to write, it’s like trying figure out where the water wants to flow. When I was younger and reached a wall while writing, I would power through it and break down that wall. Being an older writer now, I feel that if there’s a wall, it means I go a different way. In my attempt to write a traditional narrative for Office Hour, from A to Z, in linear fashion, I failed completely! But once I accepted the fact that the play could go a different way, it freed me up to keep writing.

NEEL KELLER: That point is interesting to me as a director, because I also let a play lead me like the water Julia talked about. By stumbling into this structure, Julia gives us a play about this contemporary subject matter and it lets us examine the issues the way a teacher would; it never feels like a play that was forced through a wall to be a straightforward narrative with one answer and one point of view.

What’s at the core of Office Hour?

JC: The play is about both race and culture, but more about alienation. There’s a story to be told when people fall through the cracks—who are disempowered—and you don’t need to be a minority to feel that way. It’s not unusual to find large numbers of disaffected people on college campuses and that may be the last place where we can reach them. So when you see someone who is troubled, what do you say? How do you connect? Do you even try?

NK: I also feel that it’s really about storytelling. It’s not an accident that all the characters are working in or taking a college class in creative writing. I think that part of what disaffected people do is to write their story through action.

Office Hour is on the Julianne Argyros Stage April 10-30, 2016.

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Mortality That Makes You Laugh

by Kimberly Colburn

Going to a Place where you Already Are asks big questions—but it’s so firmly based in character-driven humor that it is anything but didactic. The characters are grappling with their own troubles navigating their relationships with one another, due to their opposing viewpoints. 

First, we meet Joe and Roberta. They’re a lively older couple whom we first see at a funeral for Joe’s co-worker. Since he barely knew her, Joe and Roberta attend more out of a sense of social obligation than anything else. They’re avowed atheists, especially Joe, and attending church service is not part of their regular life—mostly weddings and funerals, and these days it’s more often the latter. The play opens with them in a pew, lightly commenting on the action around them. The setting makes Roberta begin to realize their mortality and the conversation turns to the question of what might happen to people when they die. Roberta used to be a believer, and there are some things she can’t dismiss as easily as Joe can.

Next, we meet Ellie and Jonas. They met yesterday by chance, and surprisingly they have quickly wound up in bed together. In contrast to Joe and Roberta’s longstanding relationship, Ellie and Jonas are just beginning to feel their way towards each other. They have an instant connection and are so comfortable with one another—if only there weren’t the hurdles of life (and Ellie’s overwhelming questions and insecurities) to get in their way…mid-conversation, Ellie dismisses a call from her step-Grandmother Roberta, but briefly wonders what she’s calling about.

Roberta has been complaining about back pain, probably from bending over to weed the dandelions last week, but Joe thinks she must have pinched a nerve. When the pain doesn’t subside after a few days, Roberta is sent for what is intended to be a routine MRI, until an allergic reaction causes her heart to stop momentarily. While Joe sits at her bedside, Roberta sees herself in a foreign place she doesn’t understand, being greeted by someone she doesn’t know but who feels terribly familiar. Suddenly, she returns to consciousness, and Joe tells her what happened, that she had a brief scare but she’s fine now. Roberta doesn’t need his explanation; she knows exactly where she went—to heaven. Joe gently ignores her passionate descriptions as a dream, but their attention is grabbed when the doctor returns and tells them the MRI showed bad news. Roberta’s full of tumors, and it’s not looking good for her. Her experience in heaven doesn’t seem so far-fetched after all, but Joe refuses to focus on anything except finding an impossible and non-existent cure. Roberta’s more interested in the larger philosophical question, and accepts her fate because she already knows where she’s going to go next. 

Rebecca Mozo, Christopher Thornton, Linda Gehringer and Hal Landon Jr. in Going to a Place where you Already Are.

Going to a Place where you Already Are was first heard by SCR audiences in a NewSCRipts reading, followed later that season by a reading as part of the Pacific Playwrights Festival. Anyone who attended either of those readings will discover that the character’s trajectories have changed significantly. Playwright Bekah Brunstetter explains that this is a normal part of her process, that she finds herself constantly writing and re-writing, including changing the fates of the characters.

Artistic Director Marc Masterson was impressed by Brunstetter’s skill as a writer and was drawn to directing the project himself. “What struck me first about Going to a Place was the sense that ‘I’m in the hands of a writer who has this vivid idea of who these people are and is able to bring them to life for me in a very short span of time.’” Brunstetter is highly collaborative, and needs the feedback from the cast to fine-tune what she wants to say. Masterson has convened a top-notch cast: SCR favorites Linda Gehringer, Hal Landon, Jr. and Rebecca Mozo, who are joined by two people making their SCR debut, Stephen Ellis and Christopher Thornton (though both have been with the play throughout its stages of development).

Brunstetter creates characters like Joe, Roberta, Ellie, and Jonas with great skill and empathy, placing them carefully in awkward situations and then using humor and heart to have them stumble their way through. They can’t always control their fates, but to have questions amid the daily struggles is a fact of humanity. Roberta’s impending mortality is hard for everyone, but her brief near-death experience of heaven which she finds comforting makes Joe irrational. How can you adapt when something occurs that is outside of your belief system? What does it mean to have faith—and what does it mean for those around you?

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