This month marks the 10th anniversary of the last show I directed.
The cast photo above was taken after the final performance of Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, and even though I am all smiles, I knew then that I wouldn’t be directing again at HART. I had already taken a year and a half off from directing because of the utterly miserable experience I had directing Urinetown: The Musical in the fall of 2014. But I agreed to direct again when approached about Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike because the show had a small cast, easy set and costumes, and (most importantly) was very well written and caught my interest. I thought, “This should be an easy, fun, and enjoyable experience.”
I didn’t post about this show at all back then. For various reasons, at the time I had turned this blog into a mirror of my Instagram feed. So, posts from that time were nothing but photos.
We actually had a really great time mounting this show. The cast was on point. I had an awesome crew to make it run. But, if I had been posting, you would have heard about how the director of the next show (and Executive Director of the theater) started teching the lights for the next show after our opening weekend and screwed the lighting up for the rest of our run. You would have heard about how he added lights behind my set the following week that would have definitely caused a fire during my show, but for the fact that theater curtains are mandated by law to be flame-retardant. His attitude when confronted about this was a big “so what” shrug. When it became super clear that the guy in charge couldn’t give two shits about shows he wasn’t in charge of was when I knew I should probably bow out. We finished the run of the show, and I have not directed since then. I was approached a few more times, but turned those down. And within a few years, I wasn’t being approached at all.
It just sucks that one person made it miserable to do shows. And I know I am not the only one who felt this way. Other directors were more willing to put up with the bullshit than I was. No director should accept their show being compromised because the person in charge of producing it didn’t give you a proper budget, reneged on the set he promised you would have, didn’t provide proper tech support, or failed to promote the show properly. I had these things happen to varying degrees on at least five of the shows I directed.
Do I miss it? For sure. It was always great to be handed a script, read it, and be able to visualize how I would stage it. That moment was always magical. That’s when I would know if a show was right for me to direct or not. I miss that. I miss working with cast and crew to put on the best show we could. But I don’t miss the aforementioned bullshit.
A friend keeps saying that one day I will have the opportunity to say all this to the person who needs to hear it. That’s not ever going to happen. It’s been nearly four years since he and I have spoken, and I actively try to avoid being places that I know he will be. And, ultimately, what good would it do? His indifference and, at times, open hostility really killed my love of acting in and directing shows … and I don’t think it’s ever going to come back.
