Sanford Meisner teaching at The Neighborhood Playhouse
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by Alan Jordan

As founder and artistic director of Caja Negra Performing Arts, now celebrating its 15th anniversary one of my jobs is to choose plays for production. This is no easy task. Bringing to life words from printed words on a page is an enormous responsibility in terms of the playwright, director, actors and audience. There are literally hundreds of thousands of plays to choose from, both period and contemporary.

Do I look for a fun, inoffensive play that will put bums in the seats? Or do I choose a play, with a message, that presents a challenge to the director, actors and audience.

Is the play relevant? Does it deal, in a mature way, with the human condition? Is there humor even in the darkest of stories? As a director, how can I best help the actors breathe life into the printed word?

The choice of a play says a lot about the integrity of a company and its purpose. Best scenario is when the director, actors and technicians are all on the same page. When they are enthusiastic about breathing life into this book of well-written pages, it can magically spring to life and join hands with an audience for a magical moment in time.

Once a play is chosen, the work begins. The actors and director need to study the era and locale that the play is set in; create back stories for their characters; memorize without line readings; and sit around a table and discuss the play and the director's vision for the play. For me, working in that collaborative atmosphere is ideal.

Circle Repertory Company, the author marked with a red dot
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Then, when rehearsals have begun, the job of publicizing the performance is at hand. This is very daunting for any company, especially a small one. "What if nobody comes? What if they don't laugh? What if they do laugh? What if they fall asleep? What if? What if?" Well, what if the sky falls? You brave on and take your bow!

Sometimes the playwright is present at rehearsals. I have found that to not be a comfortable situation. Tennessee Williams sat quietly in the dark when I performed in "Battle of Angels" at Circle Repertory in New York. He gave his notes privately to our director. Mr. Williams was a gentleman.

Another time a new playwright was very distraught at rehearsals. He made everyone uncomfortable by uproariously laughing at his own jokes and continually suggesting and commenting in front of the actors. Thankfully, I don't remember his name or the name of the play.

Today' "re-imagining" plays is quite in vogue. It can be done, and is sometimes done meticulously without changing a word of dialogue. Still, some well-known playwrights leave very strict instructions on the interpretation or misinterpretation of their plays. Edward Albee is said to have left strict instructions that "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf' may never be performed by four men.

Jeffrey Hatcher, author of "A Picasso"
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Mounting a play can be a monumental task. Funding a play without government assistance is daunting. Having to continually ask for private funding is exhausting.

Paying theater artists for their work should be essential. Artists need to be recognized for their time, talent and commitment. Applause, while very welcome, is not enough.

I worked my nervous ass off for more than three years at a $1.95 per hour weekend job at Alexanders and Gimbels in New York to support my participation at The Neighborhood Playhouse and attendance at private classes. I prayed every day that I was "getting" Sanford Meisner's word exercises and his unique way of working. I must have pleased him since I was one of the favorite students he chose to serve petit fours at his soirees. It was a big deal for a young actor to serve Stella Adler and Walter Matthau among others... and take home left-over petit fours.

With so much work involved, why bother? Because plays are important when read and especially important when performed. Good theater is intoxicating and thought-provoking. The whole enchilada of putting on a play is exciting, scary and satisfying.

Please support live theater. With your attendance and the generous support of theater lovers, there is a bright future for live theater in San Miguel de Allende.

"A Picasso" by Jeffrey Hatcher takes place in 1941 at an abandoned theater in Paris. The playwright conflates numerous interrogations by the Nazis during their occupation of Paris into one re-imagined meeting with a somewhat atypical Nazi, a woman whose career as an art historian was detoured into service as an adjunct to the German ministry of culture.

The entire audience, of 50 people, will be seated on the stage. This intimate style of theater is called "site specific" as the action is in an abandoned theater.

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Alan Jordan on stage in reverse
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