Introducing: Board of Directors

We've got something a little different: another podcast about arts and culture! We’re introducing you to Board of Directors, where host Adam Marple sits down with theater directors from all over the world and talks to them about their craft, what got them to where they are today, and the projects they're developing for the future.

Our host Adriana Baer is behind the mic spilling the beans on a whole bunch of stuff she never talks about on I’m Into This Place. Why she quit her Artistic Directing job, what she REALLY thinks about the American theater, and more. You don’t want to miss this!

👀 Find Board of Directors here.
👀 See Adriana's directing portfolio here.
👀 For more, visit the episode page.

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Transcript

0:35

So Adriana, we were talking before we went live, before I started recording about uh directing without directing. Being a director without being a director. um And we'll definitely talk about this. And I'm glad you did kind of bring this up um because you and I met at Columbia at a moment when the field was still very sure what a successful theater career looked like. When you look back at that time, what were you training for then and what did you actually end up training for? Well, I think this will come as no surprise to you, and I think you actually know this, that I went into Columbia with a goal to become an artistic director of a regional theater company, and that was what I wanted to do. And I had been an associate artistic director of a theater in San Francisco prior to coming to Columbia. And I was very, very happy doing that. And there was a moment when I was about two-ish years into that, and I was assistant directing um for a woman named Sharon Ott, who's incredible. um She at the time, well, so Sharon had been the artistic director of Berkeley Repertory Theater, and then she was the artistic director of Seattle Rep. And I was like, you have the career of my dreams, like how did you do this? What do we do? And, um, but she had just been let go of Seattle rep by the board. She had not had some rift with them. Who knows the details and this kind of trajectory of career that she had had for many, many years, building these incredible institutional type places was like not, um, not there for her anymore. So I said, you know, I'm, I want to be an artistic director and do you think I should go get an MFA? Because I'm really happy here and I'm, and I'm, I'm proceeding, you know, I'm like doing the thing that I want to be doing. I was directing really, really cool stuff. I was producing. I was really, I was like San Francisco's, you know, my home. was like, yay, this is great. And she said to me something really interesting, which was she said, look, I've run two of the largest regional theaters in the country. I've had an incredible career. And now what I want to do is I want to go teach. I just want to take my family and I want to go teach somewhere. And that's what I want to do for like the next phase of my career. And I can't get hired to teach college because I don't have a terminal degree in my field. And she said, and she said, she was so kind, but she was like, and you know, no offense, but I'm not going to go to grad school and sit in a classroom with people in their twenties who don't know what they're doing, you know? And I was like, no offense taken, I get the message. And so I was like, OK. And I wanted to do that anyway. But it was just this moment of, it was kind of one of those sliding doors moments where you can stay here and build your career this way, or you can go to school and learn stuff and train up. And so you ask, what was I training for and what did I actually train for? This is a really good question. What I was training for. was to go be a leader and maybe teach too. Because that was it. And I did end up doing both of those things, which we'll get to. But I um think it was also just that moment really early on. was probably 24, yeah, four-ish when I had that conversation of recognizing right away that you can go be the greatest artistic director in the world and have company and have a life. And then there will be a point in which that ends, then what is the what next? um So shore up your, shore yourself up for whatever you might want to do with this also or instead of, right? So that was in my head coming into school. But I also wanted to go mess up a lot. I mean, that really, I think, was the greatest gift of those years because I was directing professionally from 21. I directed my first show that was reviewed in the San Francisco Chronicle. It was like from the beginning of my actual directing career, I was directing very publicly. And at the time, shocking no one who was in our class because it's still who I am, I was like, trying to get an A in directing my play. know, you know. And I felt like I didn't know enough. So I would come to my first rehearsals, and I would just stack books up around me with post-its in them to prove that I had done all my work. Because I probably wasn't, you know, I hadn't really done the work as a person in the world yet. But I sure knew all the research, you know. So being able to go to school and close the door for three years and make crappy work or try stuff that didn't work or try stuff that did work, whatever, just make stuff in a container instead of in public allowed me to kind of work out those muscles. And obviously, we learned a lot. And we took other classes besides directing classes, which I think is really important to mention. We don't talk about a lot when we talk about our time at Columbia and grad school, but we were also taking a season planning class and a development and marketing class and dramaturgy and theater history and the academic stuff as well as the practical stuff. There was a whole other bunch of stuff we were up to. uh It doesn't take up very much space in our cognitive, in our brains or in our collective memory, I think, because they weren't the main thing, right? But we were there doing those things too. take any electives while you were there? Like anything non-theater related? No. I know you did and I was, I wish I had. I'm glad I did. mean, again, yeah, you're right. don't spend a lot of time thinking about it, but thinking about my trajectory of my career now, I took a world cinema class and a uh sculpture class. And it was just like, yeah, I needed that brain space because we were 110 % in the basement of a dorm in our theater doing that day day out. Yeah, I will say I think my undergrad was extremely broad in that way. I have a BA in liberal arts from Sarah Lawrence College, which is like the liberal artsiest of the liberal arts colleges. And so I took a lot of those kinds of classes in undergrad. And so I feel like I have that background. But what I missed was any kind of balance when I was in school, which is what you were. getting. And I think that would have been really smart for me. I don't know what I would have. I probably should have taken a dance class. Like I should have done something out of my head. You know, not gone and taken like another art history class or something that would have made me academic-y think-y person. But like, I don't know, a modern dance class and gone and like thrown myself on the floor for a while. Yeah, so but I think like, so, so I got a lot of skills, obviously, and I got a lot of knowledge and I tried a lot of things. And I think that our third year, I really took as the opportunity to start building those connections that would get me whatever was to come next. in fact, that is what happened. So I did my two internships, one with Robert Woodruff at Opera Boston, and that was my like, art soul, you know, what did Anne always say that you have one internship for your creative self and one internship for your career self. So my creative self piece was working on a new opera with Robert Woodruff, um which was incredible. And we ended up taking that to Beijing the following year. it was amazing. It was amazing. And then my other internship was I went out to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. in Ashland and I specifically asked to assist the outgoing artistic director, Libby Apple, when the incoming artistic director, Bill Rausch, was in his first season because I was really interested in leadership transition and it was fascinating and I learned a lot and they were both very generous, especially Libby. I was with her a lot in talking to me about leading the organization and now not leading the organization. So there were a lot of these kind of seminal moments and building up to where I ended up, talking to people who were like, I did this thing and now I'm doing something else. Or I was doing something else and now I'm doing this thing. Just a lot of transition moment conversations. So, associate artistic director, freelance artistic director, coach, podcaster. From the outside, it looks like reinvention. From the inside, what's continuous? Thank Buh. What am I continuously struggling with or what am I continuously making? no, not even that. It's that, you know, again, this outside perspective that the industry has of like, if you're not directing, you're not a director. If you're not acting, you're not an actor versus the fact that you have been constantly creating from the moment I met you till now. And so that outside perspective of like, she's just changing careers, but like, you're the same person. So what is that thing that like the drive of Well, I may not be able to do it in this medium, but I'm still searching or I still have this question and I can answer it in any medium. Yeah. I think that one of the things that I'm constantly trying to figure out is how to help make the unseen seen. um And I haven't thought about it this way in a really long time, so I'm glad you're asking the question. But when I was an undergrad, I did my thesis on German Expressionism and the whole point of German Expressionism really at its core. is that, is making the internal life external. So that's why you get in OG German expressionism, get people moving in weird ways or like strange shadows or whatever. But it's really all about we have this internal life or we have this internal self. And we want to show that and express that. And that is both an interest I have in the kind of characters I want. to examine when I'm directing, but also the actors themselves who are in those rooms. I've always been, and Adam, you know this well, that my impulse is from text and also from actors. I'm really an actor's director. I'm also a playwright's director. I'm not the kind of director that I think some of our classmates are. And you are in many ways, where the imaging and the worlding and the external comes first. uh And then how are we going to fill in that external? For me, it's usually the internalist first. The spark is a feeling, a conversation, an emotion, whatever. And then we're going to make that thing seen. So as a director, I'm interested in that. And So as a director, I'm interested in that. As a coach, I'm interested in that. As a teacher, I'm interested in that. And as a podcast host and creator and producer, I'm interested in that. It's like when I fast forwarding a million years, I now run a business where, at the core of it, is a podcast about arts, culture, and heritage makers in the community where I live, in Southwest Washington state. I go to people's homes and I sit with them and I ask them questions so they will tell me their stories. And I get inside, I get inside their space. I get inside their brain, I get inside their art. And I'm like, what is that thing? And it feels very similar to directing and asking an actor to explore a character. Well, why did you make that thing that way? What is the feeling that you're trying to express? And then I sculpt the story so that the audience or the listener can hear. the story of this person. The difference is now, currently, I'm working with real characters uh instead of character characters, invented characters, you know? Yeah. But I'll tell you what, you asked the question earlier, what was I training for, really? And yesterday I interviewed a poet. who is in her probably late seventies, maybe even early eighties. And she just got an MFA in poetry from Pacific university. And she said, I brought my poems to my teacher. And he said, these are really good poems, but where are you inside your own work? And I kept my mouth shut, of course, because I'm interviewing and I was like, Oh my God, that is the number one note I got. from all of my classmates and for three years straight was, where are you in this work? It looks good. It sounds good. It's really smart. It's very pretty. It's very clean. It's very well organized. like, who are you? Like, why? Why you? Where's the you in it? And so I'm still asking myself that question. And as a podcast host who's done dozens, I mean, dozens of this podcast and over 100 altogether, I'm still learning how to put my own self in my own work, even as a host whose voice is in your ears every single week, you know? And recognizing too that people want that, and that makes the work better, you know? But it's like been a struggle from the 90s, man. I remember uh when we had Perrone on the podcast, uh you know, she brought up the thing that Anne says like on day one that sticks with you all the way through. I remember and you talked about on the other past other podcast as well of that day where she just kept on making you repeat again and again and again until, you know, maybe in a bit of a torturous way you broke down. Maybe maybe, you know, it was a different time and place. I don't know. um But yeah, I think, yeah, what you just nailed is that thing. But I think it's also. oh absolutely everything you just said is just like, yeah, of course, I see that I see that now. That's what it is and what it was. And that's all of our struggles is, is that thing of going, well, I keep having to do this thing. I keep having to not it's not about leveling up. not even about achieving it. It's that that's your that's your quest. Yeah, which is so odd because when I say it out loud like that, it's like, oh, is that actually that's like my and I've been working on trying to make my internal external. But as a director, you're able to. mean, maybe you shouldn't. Maybe your work is not as good. And by your I mean, work is not as good. But ah if you can, but you can step you can step outside of it, you know. and be kind of looking at the big picture. And the thing is, in reality, my ability to look at the big picture is one of the reasons why I've been successful in the things I've been successful. My ability to look at the big picture is one of the reasons I've been successful when I have. It's like as a producer, as an artistic director, as a community leader, as now a podcast producer who's producing lots of stuff, um not just my own work, then that is something, that is a skill I have that I think comes from that moment back in high school when I realized I was reading the play from the perspective of the audience and not from the perspective of the character I was most likely to play. That was the moment where I was like, oh, I think maybe I'm a director. Yeah, that's interesting. was I was going to ask. mean, I don't think I've ever asked this question of you. Like, when did you know? But that makes so much sense. It was it was a very similar thing for me as well, where I was on stage as an actor and I was like, you know, if I just take two steps to the left, I will have created a diagonal. will open up this channel to what's behind me and the lights will be better. And I was just like, wait a minute. Whoa, I'm not supposed to be doing this as an actor. Something's wrong. And then I couldn't go back. Yeah. And the few times that I have performed um since the middle of college, which has been extremely rare, like count on one hand. um I find it very disconcerting uh because I don't know how to not. I mean, it's training too, right? It's like working a muscle. If I decided I wanted to go back on the stage, I could work it out. um But I don't know. of your brain? Like, it really is like, you know, we had, you know, I wanted to interview uh actor directors as well to be like, how the hell do you flip the switch? And, you know, uh Sean, the second episode, he's an actor and he's a director. And he said, literally, uh acting is a vacation from directing. I don't, I, consciously choose not to be thinking about those things and just focus on myself and be really selfish. And I was like, okay, yeah, I guess I can understand that but mean, think actor-directors, like, actors who act in their own work, that's one kind of human. And then there are people who do both. And I think, I think for me it would be easier to be a people who do both than to be in my own work. Because I don't know, how do you, I don't know. I'm just, that to me is. See, again, this goes back to my whole heart space, though. My immediate question is, that's not fair to everybody else. I'm not at all like, how would I do it? I'm like, no, God. My poor actor who's acting opposite me, and then I have to be like, hold on a second. Let me go look at it from over there. Can I have my stand in or whatever? I just don't know. I feel like they would have such a less valuable experience, but I don't know. I've never done it. So what do I Who knows? doesn't appeal to me in the least though, you're right, absolutely right. um Okay, so you brought up, taking it back for a second, you brought up, and it makes total sense now, I didn't realize this, but it makes total sense of going and working with Libby Apple at Oregon Shakes as she's exiting and becoming an artistic director on your own and then also choosing to exit. Can you talk about um what it means to like, have power and give it away. Ugh. You know, this- long pause so you can cut this long pause. um Well, I think that the implication of your question is that I had power. uh Yeah, let's talk about that. So as I said from, you know, 15 or whatever, I was like, I want to be an artistic director, go to school, blah, blah, apply for this job, get this job, get hired. I'm 29 when I got hired, which is very young to become an artistic director of an established theater, but not unheard of, but young. I got there and I was uh I was taking over from the founding artistic director, had been there for 15 years. And I just want to flag this for anybody who's listening and considering this. leader's founder transition, no matter what it is, whether it's a theater or a retail store on Main Street, is extremely difficult uh and is rarely handled well by the people who are, but the person who is leaving or by the board, right? It's very, very, very difficult. It's a very unique type of transition. And my recommendation for all out there is to deliberately um hire an interim to help transition between the first person and the next person. um because often what ends up happening is your second person actually ends up being your interim and they kind of palate cleanse and do a lot of cleanup and then they burn out and leave and somebody else comes in and they stay for a really long time, which is what happened in my case. So, you know, so when I got there, I discovered, you know, that what I had thought I was going into was not what I was going into. And, you know, we could spend six hours of a podcast on that story someday, but to kind of, cut to the chase, the time I was there was very much, it became very clear to me that my Uber role, my sort of like universe trajectory role here was to create structure where there hadn't been. that's where all of my skills as a type A overachiever, A plus student, producer, big picture brain person was like, absolutely the right person for this job. um And so I did. I cleaned house. And by clean house, I mean literally pulled out cans of paint under the risers that had been there for 10 years and cleaned up filing cabinets with no filing system, all the way to creating an HR structure and a handbook and hiring new people. And in the time we were there, we tripled our staff and doubled our budget. grew our audience by three times. I don't remember the exact numbers, but it was a lot of growth very quickly. And I started realizing the company is getting stronger and stronger, and I'm getting sicker and sicker, literally. And I have this kind of image of um me. It's like those old political cartoons. It's like, me hunched over with like a huge bag Santa Claus on my back like with the theater and I'm down here being like, know, crawling, trudging through the mud. I just realized that I um was just insanely burned out, you know, and I was getting sick physically and like it was just really challenging. also Loved it though. There were things about it that were incredible. I got to decide what shows I wanted to direct and hire my friends. I got to grow the company. We moved into a building with another large regional theater company here and then a bunch of other people moved in after we did. And there was this wonderful community. And it was a really vibrant time in Portland, sort of 2012 to 2016. It's like prime Portlandia days. There was a lot. of new support for the arts. It was a really, really great time. And I also was very lucky to come into this community uh with a position and with where I entered in as colleagues with the other artistic directors in town. I had to build those relationships, but we were colleagues. And so when I did eventually leave, I had my plate full of directing work, which was awesome. So I was actually able to transition. It wasn't easy, but I was able to transition to being a freelance director and teacher pretty quickly um because of all the work and relationship building I'd done when I was in that leadership position. um So when you say like going from having power to not having or to giving away that power, I would say that I had a lot of responsibility and I did have a lot of, I had influence in my corner of the universe. um What I gave up was the thing that I wanted the most, which was a company and a place to make work that I was interested in. And that still is heartbreaking. I think about it. It's hard for me to even think about it without feeling sad and emotional. Because I didn't leave because I didn't want to be an artistic director anymore. I left because I couldn't. I couldn't carry the emotional weight of this transition. I think that the company, I told the board when I left, I had you hired me as an interim with the expectations of being here for a set number, for maybe two years, I would probably still be there. we would have, instead of them setting me up and saying like, you're going to come in and just solve all our problems. they literally, one of them literally said to me, well, you're young. So we will have young people coming to the theater now. Like our audience development plan was hire somebody young and then the young people will come. If you build it, they will come. Okay, yeah. but I literally know zero people in port. Like how is that an audience development plan? Your job is to go to the place where all the young people are and just stand there. I'm mad. It was like I was like either. And this is the other tricky thing about taking over from a founder is you're either the golden child who's everybody who didn't like that person is like, thank God you're here. You're going to save everything. or you're on front-line revenue. or you're the scapegoat, or you're not the person they loved, and you've come in and stolen their theater company. And there were people, cut this, including the fucking former artistic director, OK, uncut. There were people who. looked at me as if I'd woken up in Brooklyn one day and been like, you know what? I'm gonna go steal a theater company in Portland, Oregon. And then there were people who looked at me and they're like, oh good. Like you have so much energy. I know people are gonna give this theater money now. And I'd be like, cool, go show me the rich people. And they're like, well, we don't know them. I was like, well, neither do I, baby. the young people that you also have to bring in. Yeah, exactly. So I mean, and then there were people who were not dumb, like, like I'm talking about, there were plenty of people who got it. But but it was, um, it was a really, it was just a really tough, tough journey. And so when I left, um I, yeah, I did end up kind of feeling very fortunate to have had time to build those relationships independently. um And from a place of, you know, listen, as much as we want things to be equal and democratic and everything else, there's still a hierarchy in what we do. And so to be able to have many conversations with the other artistic directors in town at without feeling like I'm holding out my hand for a job, then when I had more time and space, I wasn't ever in the position where I felt like I was uh lower on the totem pole than they were. Are we even allowed to say that anymore? Lower. That I was lower on the hierarchy than them. And I guess that's the power piece that you're talking about. Right? Because really it's influence, it's like ability to make stuff. I think it's important that you name that because I think anybody who does want to become an artistic director thinks, oh, well then I'll just wield the, I'll have this power to like plan whatever I want to plan and do whatever I want to do. And actually it's one, it's responsibility. And as you said, it's influence and your little sphere of influence, but you're beholden to somebody else. know, Brian talked, Brian talked about his board of directors very... very openly, which I wasn't expecting. But yeah. him talking about that because I just, I was in my kitchen listening to that episode going, yeah, totally, absolutely. I can't believe it. You know, me too. Yeah. Um, you know, and, listen, like you say responsibility because you have a, you have a responsibility to the institution that is separate from your responsibility to yourself or your desires to yourself. Now, when you, this is the difference. When you start a theater company, it is all about you and what you want. Yeah. Yeah. My visual for a founder, founder brain, is there's a tree trunk. There's a tree, right? There's a trunk of the tree, which is the inciting incident, the idea, right? I'm going to make a theater company about Shakespeare, whatever. And then there, in our case, profile was similar to signature, one playwright per season, right? We're going to go really deep with one playwright. OK, that's the idea. So that's the trunk of the tree. And then the founder brain just like, And now there's this branch and this branch and these little branches and they're all mixed up together. And now there's a bunch of leaves and like, it's just all chaos up here. And then the second person's job is to come in and like make a scaffolding and create structure out of this kind of big tree. So when it's your company, you can make that big tree, whatever. If you're the person who comes in after and you're like, well, it was a tree, but actually I think it should be. a Chevrolet truck, right? And you just like walk over there and you're like, we're going to do only this. No, if you want to turn your tree into a truck, it's going to take 15 years of like moving this branch over here. And this is a weird metaphor, but I think you get the point. It's like, like you can't just come in and like either, you know, cut the tree, uproot the tree. Or you only, like, and this is what happened at the theater that I was the associate artistic director of in San Francisco. The founder left. and the sort of, there was another person and then there was, after she left, this kind of collective took over and they decided to like uproot the, hierarchical structure of theater and do everything by committee. And also they stopped doing the kind of, they were only going to do the most fringe of the mission. So the mission had always been to do experimental new plays and revision to classical texts, texts, right? And that was what I was really excited about and still am that whole idea. And they, you know, eeked over and over and over so far that like, we're only going to do plays that no one has ever heard of that are the weirdest of the weird of the weird. And now we're doing it by committee and now there's no structure and so guess what? A year later, after three emergency fundraising campaigns, they closed the company. And you won't talk about a day I cried. mean, heartbroken, heartbroken. um So you can't just come in and like... Do whatever the hell you want. If you want there to be a there there for you to actually have a job in a couple years, you have to make transition really slowly. And in fact, founding artistic director, Rob Melrose, is now the artistic director of the Alley Theater in Houston, which is crazy to me because this is a man who's making the tiniest, weirdest. I mean, we're talking about Maya Kovsky, Meyer Holtz. I mean, the craziest shit and m And now he's running one of the largest theaters in the country, right? But he's still a springboard for so many Broadway things as well. new, interesting new plays and whatever. They do a lot of work there. But Rob comes in and he's like, no, we're doing a Christmas Carol. We're doing the like biggest, most expensive, most gorgeous Christmas Carol that is ever Christmas Caroled. And he did. And he has, right? Are we going to stop doing the Agatha Christie series that brings in, you know, um like, I don't know what, you know, 3 million, $5 million every summer. No joke. Of course not. Because that brings the people to the house. And then I'm going to do my weird little experimental play in the downstairs space that makes me happy in three to five years from now. So he's like very strategically. getting the trust of his board, getting the trust of the staff, of the resident artists, of the community. And then he's like, hey, look, you've seen me direct this gorgeous Christmas Carol and this ridiculous Erkul Pueroh mystery on the train, like whatever. And he has a great time with all of it because he has a billion dollars and it doesn't matter. then he's like, but also look at this weird thing. And people are like, oh, okay, let's take a look, you know. That's how you make change, but it takes a really long time and it takes a lot of money. Yeah. Would you be an artistic director again? Mm. I don't know. I think about this a lot actually. In some ways, I feel like I just keep making myself an artistic director, even though I'm not running a theater company right now. I'm using all of the same skills running this podcast and small media company that I used as an artistic director. I know that's not the question you're asking, and I will answer it. But I think like, I think we have to name the like, I think we have to name the shit storm that the American theater, the regional American theater is going through right now and has been going through for the last six years. You know, um, I had a full plate, the best season, the most money I was ever going to make on my plate in 2020. I was teaching at local universities, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, me and everyone else, right? And I have not seen that kind of energy or possibility since then. And I am one of a million of us who has experienced similar things. think had I had my own company at the time, there are many people who are still running their companies. It's not like there aren't theater companies. um But the field is very different than it was. I mean, the last thing I directed here in Portland was Three Woman Macbeth at the largest theater in the region called Portland Center Stage. um ah This and it was incredible. um Songs and beautiful production. This year they're doing 100 % co-productions. um And the artistic director is not directing anything. Hmm, yeah. And also, side note, she and I are literally the exact same demographic. We are the exact same age. We both went to liberal arts colleges on the East Coast. We've known each other forever. We're both white women. I love her. When there's a slot for my demographic to direct there right now, it's going to be her because she's on salary. And it doesn't cost the company any more money for her to direct. So it's like an economic, we're just in a real tough kind of economic situation. So when you ask if I would ever be an artistic director again, I'm like, I... Under these circumstances, no. I don't want that job. It's painful. mean, Marissa has the quote unquote at PCS, the quote unquote best artistic directing job you can have in the state of Oregon other than OSF. And look at how incredibly hard it is for OSF and Portland Center stage to exist. And then the next tier down from there is artist's repertory theater, which when I was working there, And a member of that group of people, we were doing eight shows a year in a theater, in a building with two theaters and an artistic director, associate artistic director, staff of 40, full-time shop. They now have half a building. No theater that's complete. They went into renovations in 2019, have not been able to complete the renovation. There are three people who work there. I think maybe three and a half staff. Um, they have an interim artistic director who's just basically been like holding the bag for five years. yeah. And they do three shows a year, and they do not have more than five people in them. Right? So like, I don't know what I'm going back to. Um, you know, I've thought like, do I just start like a really banging community theater company at like, you know, and like, just do it for fun because for the love of the love, I'm like, yeah, maybe. But man, do I not want to raise money. I mean, there's nothing less that kills my creativity more than worrying about money. I'm really tired of it. I'm really tired about thinking about money. You know? Do you see a way forward? I pie in the sky. I do this all the time, I'm just going like, well, okay. I've lived everywhere and you were in Germany for a good deal of time, right? Like you were there studying just a little bit, but. first and second year of grad school I was there. But you already saw what it could do for a subsidized theater and what it meant for artists and things like that. like, okay, we're not gonna have that. We're not gonna be Germany, as much as we might like in a lot of ways. But do you see a way forward? Do you see things that we're not doing or we're not experimenting with or we're not trying or we're not pushing for? Well, it's very interesting doing the work that I'm doing now because I'm seeing... I'm seeing the arts ecology as a whole now and not just only thinking about the theater ecology. And for my whole life, it was always just what's going on in the theater. And now I'm seeing sort of arts in general. I think a way forward is for us to go back to basics and focus on grassroots community building, small companies that are rooted in place that are supported by the people who are around them. um And somebody was saying recently, this is the year of analog. I don't know if you've heard that. And I'm like, I am here for it. It's like the backlash is happening finally, I hope, against all this crap AI nonsense, whatever we're suffering through, right? And in some ways I feel like, you know, we've been saying for decades, the regional theater model is broken. Well, the thing is, the regional theater model... I kind of question that language. It's a little easy, right? The impetus for the regional theater movement from the very beginning, and by the beginning, mean like the 50s. wasn't the hundreds of years ago, right? Like the world that we're kind of inheriting was people who wanted to see theater and see professional theater or high quality theater and not have to go to New York to do it. So they brought regional theater companies to Texas, to Chicago, to San Francisco, to Seattle, to Portland, to the major cities. They got donors in those cities to invest in the community-run thing, to say, like, we don't need to be New York. We can be Houston, Dallas, whatever, San Francisco, LA. We can have our own thing. And the wealthy people in those communities at those times were like, yes, let's do that. And that's, that's how the models got really rooted. Right. And so I don't know that we necessarily will ever be able to have massive houses packed with people because we have all kinds of entertainment on the three by five cards we keep in our pockets. Right. So, but the core seed of that is still here, which is that people want to be together in rooms. So I just think we need to not think about how do we rebuild? How do we refill? How do we like go back? I think it's like, well, what's the point? Oh, it's actors and audience and that magic thing in between them and this community is in this space at this time and what are we saying? I did an interview with the community theater just up the road here called Love Street Playhouse and they do some new plays and they do, you know, like a murder mystery, whodunit and whatever. It's this jewel box little space. They have a lovely lobby. They have an audience who comes and packs the houses and the actors come, will drive from Portland to Woodland, Washington, which means nothing to any of you, except I'll just say it's like at least an hour drive to be in this play for no money because the community is so strong and the work is good. It's, it's, you know, is it amazing sometimes? Is it mostly just kind of fine? Yeah, but like, It's great. Because we're here and we're experiencing the thing. like, no, that's not sustainable as a business model. No one's making any money. Although actually, the company is really smart. They're actually not a nonprofit. So they get all their money from local business sponsorship. And they run it as a company. But they're not paying their artists the way that we want to be talking about. So I'm not saying that like, go build a community theater and like, you'll all make a bunch of money. But I just think the question that you're asking is an important one. I think ultimately, I think we've just got to look internal and just like, who's really here? And how do we have these conversations? And what's important to this community? And the heartbreaking thing is sometimes the answer is going to be it not theater. Sometimes the community that you're in is going to be like, don't You can keep doing plays, but like, I don't want to see them, you know? But a lot of the time that's not the answer, but we're just asking the wrong questions. I live across the street basically kind of from a community theater here and I've never been in. it's, I hear them, know, they'll do in the parking lot, they'll do, you know, they'll just put on speakers and just make sure that everybody can hear that they're rehearsing funny thing happened on the way to the forum. And I'm just like, shut up. But, you know, there's not a professional theater anywhere around here. You'd have to go to Charlotte, which is hour and half away or Raleigh another two hours away to go to professional theater. And but there's so but there are tiny and thriving it seems community theaters. And I can't get my students to go to them. Because they're not professional. So they must not be good. And I'm trying to I keep trying to get them to go back to saying like, amateur is not a bad word. It's rooted in love. an amateur does it for love. That's the etymology of that. And so, yeah, they're not making any money on that. But like, where did you get your start? Where did we all get our somewhere in this in this land? Like, this is where we started from, and then we move away from it. And then we poo poo on it, you know. but also, would argue that a lot, look, look, here you and I are. mean, you and I have very, very different stories for the last 20 years of where we've gone and what we've done. But on paper, two very accomplished and successful theater people, right? Capital T, capital P. We're in the thing, right? And here I am not directing plays right now. Does that, if I were to go direct a play at a community theater, it would be because I miss directing. That would not be because I am suddenly less good of a director. And so I think a lot of the people that are, in fact, I know because I've talked to a lot of them, that a lot of the people who are involved in community theater are people who were professional actors and then realized that making $32,000 a year on a very, very, very good year Yeah, yeah. gonna sustain them in a culture that doesn't support our health insurance where there are no subsidies for artists like in Ireland and now it's gonna be Scotland. Like this is not the country to live in if you want support for your thing as an artist, right? And they had to go get a stupid real person job. doesn't mean they don't love it anymore. And doesn't mean they don't have an MFA from wherever, right? Or like years of experience. I mean, it just changes. The question becomes. In fact, sometimes I think those, those pieces are better because the people, because the energy there is just it, like you said, it's for the love of the thing. but listen, your students aren't going to go if you haven't gone. So you got to go first, buddy. You're right, you're absolutely right. need to lead by example. um you is to go see every show they do and then see what you think. see everything at this place. There's so much work that's done at this university. I'm not bragging about this university at all. I'm just literally saying that like we have our own main stage shows. We have a great student led thing that they do all their stuff. And then outside of that, they'll just put stuff up with their own. I've been to people's backyards so many times in this last two years, more than I've been in the last 20 years of seeing theater in these amazing spaces. I was in somebody's basement. next to their washing machine watching a velveteen rabbit for kids. It was great. It was one of the best things I've seen. But yeah, I haven't walked across the street to see that. And that's something that I need to shift in my perspective as well of like, well, one, I'm not really interested in going to see a funny thing happen on the way to the forum anywhere, but they are doing other things. So go to see that. We have at least four that I'm aware of just in this town. So I should go and do that. I mean, you never know. And the thing is, like... I mean, you don't need me to have a philosophical conversation with you about what is theater. I feel like lots of your guests have talked to you about that. And there are a lot more interesting thinkers on that topic than me. But well, maybe who have more creative ideas about the answer to that question. But I would offer that ultimately, We started talking about this because you asked me would I ever want to be an artistic director again. And the thing is, the reason why I love being an artistic director is being able to bring people together to do work that I am passionate about. So if that's the job, yeah, definitely want that job again. But if the job is, as Brian Kulick was talking about, battling your board and fundraising and waking up at two o'clock in the morning to worry about payroll and fighting city ordinances about who can pull up in front of the space to get out of the car because they have, we don't have proper wheelchair access and we're on a bus line. And like the work that's not anything about the work is really hard because the, because the, usually when you have a job like that, you're getting compensated well for the pain in the ass that the job is. Right. And there was a moment where it was literally like I was, I was in rehearsal and I was, wow, this is a story. think I've told you this story before. So cut this if you want, but I remember I was rehearsing Dead Man's Cell Phone, Sarah will play. Okay. Very weird, interesting, difficult play though. Right. Comedy is not ever really been my strong suit. Necessarily. Like I can structure it, but it's just not, it's not my comfort. Okay. We're on day two of rehearsal. So we're staging a scene for the first time. Not well, day two of on our feet. We're staging a scene. It's not funny. Right? It's not funny. And I'm like, I want, my brain did the following. I was like, the scene is bad. If the scene is bad, the play will be bad. The play will not be funny. The play will be bad, which means no one will come to the theater. They will not buy the tickets, which means we will not meet revenue goal, which means that I will not be able to pay the health insurance of my friend who just had a baby who works for me. So I went from this scene isn't like funny yet on day two when we're still literally like, where's the door to baby is going to die. And that happened in like, you know, thought time. was like five seconds, you know, of, real time. And I was like, oh, this isn't good. Because I stopped, like, let me tell you how good I was in rehearsal that day. Like, was I coming up with funny ideas? Fuck no. I'm like, you guys better be funny or everybody's gonna die. know, it's like the stakes are really stupid. Right? And like, then there was a moment where I thought, okay, well, maybe I should, maybe the torture is such that I should stop directing. Because I'm really good at the structure stuff. So then I won't have the tension. Then I won't worry so much when I won't be worried in rehearsal. Like I'll just not be in rehearsal. And then I was like, well, then if I'm going to do that, I should just go be a fucking banker and make some real money. And that was when I started the fissure started and I was like, uh-oh, I don't think this is going to work for me. because it's very difficult to be in a scarcity mentality financially and be creative. We know this. This is why the myth of the starving artist is such bullshit. Bullshit. Yeah. And we, and I think certainly our generation, think, I'm hoping it's better now, but our generation, we got like re-indoctrinated because of rent. You know, like a hundred years before us, they got indoctrinated because of La Boheme and then we got re-indoctrinated because of rent. And we were like in the nineties being like, we're going to move to New York. We're going to be starving artists and we'll make amazing art. And then we got to New York and we're like, Oh my God, I need to get a job at a restaurant to pay my bills. And this is awful. You know, and now I'm hoping that this generation is the like, I don't know, Taylor Swift, where they're like, yeah, actually being a bazillionaire feels better. Let's go work on that. Taking back my work that somebody else stole from me and re-recording it so that I can be a bazillionaire. Yeah. baller move. uh But now you run a media empire. Yes, an empire of one and a What's that like? mean, like, what's your days like with this? Obviously, you're lining up like me, interviews, you're going out on the field, but like, the impulse for that and um as you say, like you're moving outside of theater and exploring the whole art ecosystem now. Tell me about your day and tell me about how this goes. That's a good question. So the impulse was kind of two things at once. One was that I was seeing an arts community here uh made up of a lot of individuals, but it didn't feel like a cohesive community. And I saw a lot of individual artists making incredible work who uh say on their social media platforms that they live in Portland, which is the closest major city, but not actually here. And I got very righteous about it, because I was like, wait, you should be able to be proud of where you live. Why do we have to pretend? um But also, I was talking to all these individual artists, because I'm a creative person, and I was out in the world, and they didn't know each other. It felt like, I think with our lack of media attention on the arts now, there's no more critics. There's no alt rags, alt newspapers. that are, you know, covering the arts in the way that there was even 10 years ago. And so I um I think that it's hard to have an account, sorry, I think it's hard for a community to feel legitimate without some external eyeballs saying like, you exist, you're legitimate, right? And so these individual artists weren't necessarily talking to each other or even knowing that they were out there. And so I was like, you know, I always start with like, why hasn't somebody XYZ, you know? Why hasn't somebody put together just a group where they can all get together and like realize that they're all here? Like we're all here, you know? And then the second thing that was happening was I had run a podcast previously and I just love podcasting. I just love the medium. I love listening to it. I love participating in it. It felt very fun to be able to be creative and also like production, you know, to be able to do all the different facets of, you know, I was not interested in zoom theater, like Right, at all. was like, there was no two-dimensional theater for me. But like, this medium um is its own thing. And I like doing it well. um And I had to stop doing that podcast because my co-host got a new job. And like, just, needed to stop. And I was really missing it. And so the impulse was like, I could help. I could not help. I could. fill this part of me that I was missing doing creatively. And I could create something that really could help my community thrive, shine a light on the amazing work that's happening, and offer some of that external validation, legitimacy on the community. And then my dream long term is that I think a lot of like, Many small and mid-sized communities, like your community should have an, I'm into this place podcast. That's what my podcast is called. I'm into this place. Your community should have an, I'm into this place. All of this, the community should have a podcast where that's like, here's what's cool. Here's what's happening. Here's what our community is doing is like, and like, go out there, get out of your house, put down your damn phone and go out in three dimensions and go see stuff. It's all the same thing. It's just still me trying to get people to buy theater tickets. I'm just like trying to get them to go to the gallery or the museum too, you know, not only theater. um yeah, so my days are a mix of production where I'm in the field. like to go to people's spaces, you know, obviously, like be in 3D with them. I don't ever record online. If I can't be in their space, we go to a studio. So I'm with them in real time. I generally talk to them for like an hour and a half and our episodes are 20 minutes. So there's a huge amount of editing. um Yeah. It's a lot of work. It's a lot of work. Yeah. And I do it that way because I don't want to limit the conversation. I like talking to these people. The more I talk to them, the more comfortable they get. Because a lot of them are not theater people who are used to talking about their work. know, they're artists or they're chefs or they're historians or whatever that is. So we need like half an hour for them to stop remembering that they're wearing a microphone, you know, and then we talk for a while. And I just listen, I do a lot of listening, which is the same thing I do as a director. I ask the right questions at the right times to hope to get the answer that I'm interested in, you know, which is fun. And then I take all that and I do a script edit. So that's where all the dramaturgy comes in, because I need to figure out how to make 90 minutes of material, a 20 minute thing, a story with an arc, right? Something that feels like it has a beginning, middle, and an end. ah And then I do have an engineer who makes it sound good, because I might be in somebody's living room, and it's echoey and trafficgy and whatever. So we have to make it sound good. uh And the reason why my episodes are short is because I did a lot of research about how I actually figured out the average length of time somebody in this area is in their car in a day. And that's how long the episodes are. So they're 25 minutes or less so that people will listen in one, hopefully in one go. And also that they might listen when they're driving to the place that I'm interviewing. So like, you're going to the Vancouver Arts and Music Festival. Listen to my episode about why and what it is on your way, you know? um And so that's the production side of things. And then there's a lot of like, supplemental. So I write articles, actually, right now I have an arts and culture journalism intern who's writing articles for me about each guest. We do photos and videos um on our website of their work. And then we do a lot of like, extra kind of community building stuff. So, you know, social media posts and we always ask people to shout out other cultural organizations. So we're reaching out to those people to let them know that they got a shout out, just like a lot of those kind of engagement pieces. um And then the rest of the time it's trying to find sponsorship and doing the like business development side of things, which again, I'm glad that I have a background in all the stuff that have a background in because I know how to put together a sponsorship package. I know how to do sales. There's a lot of different things that now make sense. then a lot of now I'm starting, it's funny, I guess I'm the new MC girl. Like I'm getting a lot of calls to MC events. Mm-hmm. I got one from the library foundation yesterday and they're like, could you MCR fundraiser? And I was like, yes, I sure can. So I'm doing a lot of that kind of public speaking and like just trying to be present in the community so that people will know about the work that we're doing and will help us grow our listenership and our subscribers to our newsletter and all of that. So it's like a lot of different. lot of different pieces to the puzzle and doing some evaluation because I'm getting close to about a year in and I'm like, okay, what's really sticking? What are people really interested in? What can I let go of? Do I need to be doing all need to be doing the most all the time? Probably not. When do you, and when do you launch your mayoral campaign? Mm-hmm, yes. Never. But I'm going to have the mayor on the podcast. Yeah, yeah, I have no interest in the political. I'll talk about them and I will have opinions about them, but I do not want to be them. I was just working on a city commission for a project and I got to be inside of that process and they asked me to also apply for the arts planning commission. They're like, would you want to be on the arts planning commission? I was like, do I want to be on the inside seeing how the sausage is made? I kind of do. I kind of want to be a part of it, but be a part from it. A part of it, but a part from it. yeah, that's... Yeah, that's... I'm thinking about it. Well, there's some things that are in the air, like I'm not hired full-time yet. I have my interview tomorrow. I'll cut this out of the podcast. So I'll be able to answer that question, you know, hopefully soon. But yeah, thinking about it. Of course they do. Of course. They love artsy people. love being around artsy people, not necessarily listening to artsy people, but being around them. Offering my perspective. artist on our commission. It's like, you're not listening to us. m So you you said that if I were to ask this question, you would default to ah to a friend of ours. But I'm gonna ask, who whose work excites you or has excited you or you've thought about or um that that we should try and get on the podcast here. So, the default answers, I mean, it's not a default answer. It's the real answer. But I told Adam it felt like cheating because I was just going to call out our classmates. I mean, I think that. I think one of the people who I'm so excited about is Katherine Hamilton, who was in school with us. Her moniker is Sister Sylvester. It's her theater company and also kind of what she goes by in the world of creative stuff. And she has just figured out this really cool intersection between all kinds of different things, like... microbiology and bookmaking and uh live performance art where she's kind of guiding the audience through an experience. And sometimes there's a turtle in the performance and like tortoise. Yeah. And, and she's making this extremely interesting experimental performance art that, you know, might I don't know, is it theater? it movies? Is it, I don't know. It's like the intersection of so many different kinds of art forms. And what I think is so interesting about Catherine, and in fact, all of the people that we went to school with, is just looking back at her work from 20 years ago when we first met her and... What she was interested in then and how her brain was working. And now seeing what her work has developed into, you can see that thread really clearly. She was always making rough around the edges, weird stuff with projectors and cardboard boxes and a hat. And was like, oh, well, is obviously. a commentary on this obscure philosopher none of us plebeians had ever heard of, that she studied at Cambridge or whatever. And she's just got this insane brain that makes connections between all of these things. she's very much, and this is what I think is most important, is she's very much herself. She puts herself in her work in a way that's really interesting. But also she's just. unapologetically, uncensoredly an artist through and through. um So I'm just really excited for her and about her. And, know, in the same way that Michael Tara Garver, our other bestie from school, like she was super interested in this word immersive before anyone had ever said it. No one had ever said that word before. And I don't care about these. There's so many dudes who are giving like talks at conferences now who are like, I've been talking about immersive for, and I'm like, no, you haven't. You don't even know, you know nothing. And Michael was like in Chicago in the early 2000s being like, what if we built the set around the audience? Right. And now she's like the head of an immersive lab. talking all over the world. She built the Star Wars Hotel at Disney and figured out how to make sleep no more work. And again, these seeds that we each had that are blossoming in these really interesting ways, uh it's kind of cool. And none of us have had a, I think we all thought I would have the most traditional trajectory. Yes. For a minute, yeah. But none of us really have sort of, it's not a linear path. Yeah. But it's not a linear path, but you're still in the same zip code. Yeah, but we're all still interested in the same things we were interested then. And that's kind of cool, I think. There's something kind of comforting about that to me. Yeah. Yeah, I feel like I know how your brain works. I feel like I know how Michael's brain works. I've never been able to understand how Catherine's brain works. And it's so fascinating. is all like, Onur as well a little bit, but I think I understand Onur. I think, and Marios as well. Like I understand. think, Catherine has always just been a mystery of like, how did you get there? Well, because she's like the smartest person any of us have ever met. But she's too smart to bother with things like remembering where her shoes are. She doesn't have time for that. She's having a conversation with Brecht's ghost. And shoes are irrelevant right now. are irrelevant right now. Yeah. How I'm going to feed myself is not on the front of my mind today. like, all of my shoes are lined up color coordinated in the front hallway. I have my Monday to shoes on my Tuesday shoes. No, I'm kidding. I do not. What a group we were. What a group we were. God. It's amazing. What a fun, amazing time that was. uh As I think, nostalgically, as you say, 20 years ago. My God. listen, it was 19, OK? Let's give ourselves a break. It was 19 years ago, Adam, that I met you for the first time. And a group of 60 other directors in a room for a weekend. Yes, that's crazy. um But at the same time, time has compressed in a way that like, doesn't it also feel like it was just a little while ago? Isn't that crazy and amazing and awful? And then there was 2020. So that all happened. Wow. I uh always end this way. of asking um our guests a question that my student asked me that I still think about a lot of thinking of a show that changed you. And again, not necessarily artistically, but as a person, I could not operate my life the way that I operated it before uh having seen this show. You've listened to the podcast, so you must have thought about this. I can see the smile on your face. Thank goodness I had warning. Yeah, I do have an answer to this one. And the funny thing is this has been my answer since I applied to Columbia. So this is a 20-year-old answer. um in San Francisco. Oh gosh, hold on. me do let me make sure I'm just gonna say the right year. We started school in 2007, right? Okay. I'll start again. um In San Francisco in 2006, the opera Dr. Atomic by John Adams, directed by Peter Sellers, premiered, had its world premiere. I was working at the opera house at the time in the box office as my day job. And so on rehearsal on lunch breaks, I would sneak in and watch rehearsals and watch them build the show a little bit because of course they built it in rehearsal room, they brought it in, but I got to see Peter Sellers jumping around and from like the third balcony, know, so I felt I was like, oh my god, this is amazing. So I was already like very, very excited. The whole opera house was buzzing, like we got to do a world premiere of this really cool piece. And for those who don't know it, this very short version is it's about the building and testing of the atomic bomb. Los Alamos. So basically Oppenheimer, but it was the opera before. And then I went to the world premiere and I got a house seat, which meant I was in like the third row. um And that to this day, that production is by far the most like cellular changing of anything I've ever seen. um And I think that's for probably a lot of reasons. um The experience being one of them, right? And I know you talk about this, like the audience experience starts when they hear about the show to after they stop talking about it, right? And I think that was a big part of it is like the whole event was such an event. But The end of that opera is them testing the bomb. And um the text of the libretto at that point is batter my heart. Three cornered God, I think that's how it goes. It's a John Donne poem. Am I saying that right? Wait, want to I'm gonna wait, hold on. Sorry, I want to make sure I say this right. Yeah, hold on. Yeah. Gosh. Wow. Amazing. Okay. So the libretto is no, I Googled it. Yeah. Thanks, Google. Thanks AI. Um, thanks Google. Anyway, so the, so the end of the opera is them testing the bomb dropping and the, um, in the mid, in the middle. So the end of act one, is the singer who plays Oppenheimer singing this incredible, incredible aria, the text of which is by John Donne and the libretto is his poem, Batter My Heart, Three-Personed God. And it's such a stunning aria. And the bomb itself is is is behind a curtain and it's backlit. And so you see just the silhouette of the bomb and you see the silhouette of this man and that's all that's on stage. And it just, you know, there's this crescendo and blackout and it's like you've chills all over your body. And so that was like remarkable and exciting. And I think about that stage picture all the time. And then at the end of the, of the opera and they're testing the bomb, it, the whole company is on stage. And they're all lying down because that's what they were doing behind the line, right? And they are, um and they're looking out at us as if the bomb is, you know, in front of them and the tower is in the audience. they, you know, and they're singing and they start looking up and then the whole company is like on the ground looking up towards us. And, you know, it's this beautiful theater thing that like you can only really do in the theater where it's like, and then like Greek messenger speech style, where like it will never be, it will never be as impactful as what we see in our own minds. Right? So we're not going to fake the bomb on stage. We're just going to create an experience where you're feeling it with us. And because they were looking at us, it was like, we were all there together having this experience, like thousands of people in the audience, hundreds of people on stage. And it was this like, build and the lights and it was all just done with light and then suddenly there's this brightness that comes and they all You know, and that's, and that's the, that's it. Right. And we know what came next, right? We don't need to do the rest of the work because we all know everybody who's sitting in that audience knows what happens next. So it was about the experience of these humans in a room together and the energy between them. And it was just, I mean, it was just, I think that, you know, I'm talking about like the most epic. of things I could possibly tell you about. uh A world premiere opera in a beautiful opera house about the atomic bomb. It's got every right. But that three-personed god thing, and I'm not a god person, but that three-personed, that trinity of mind, body, spirit for me has always been the question. How do we get the mind, the body, and the spirit on stage together? in this room. That's what I'm still working on. And that is, to me was like the epitome of, of doing that. um So. I wish more people could see Peter Sellers work. I wish more people knew who he even was. There's so many times when I'll mention the name and they'll be like, Pink Panther? It's like, okay. No, one of the greatest American directors that nobody ever knows and nobody ever sees. he brings that spirituality. He's Buddhist and he brings that spirituality into the work, but he's also highly political. And also, there's so much heart in that human. Like, my god. I don't know that I've, I do know that I've never been close to the amount of heart and vulnerability and joy. that he brings to his work. And I don't, truly don't know if I ever will be. I think that's like a couple more reincarnations away for me. m Uh, but God bless them. Awesome. Adriana, thank you so much. It's been amazing having you on here. I knew you were one of the people I wanted to have on here very early on, naming the podcast what we named it and where the name came from. It's our little joke to ourselves back in 19 years ago. um But you've been somebody that like, we knew you were gonna do amazing things back then. ah And you've done amazing things and it's been so awesome to watch those things and watch those things grow and develop and like I think it is gonna be a media empire. I think there is gonna be a I'm into this place everywhere and I think that's a really cool thing for everybody to like think about uh But thank you for being here today and sharing all of this the vulnerability which is great ah of having gone through and survived and thrived on the other side of it, so uh There will be a part two. You're gonna have to come back. Well, I'll try and do something interesting between now and then we can talk about it. yeah. Okay. Well, thanks, Adam. It's been fun to hang out with you. Yeah, it's been great catching up with all of you after all these years. I've been away and a negligent friend, so trying to change that. I mean, you have been away, but you haven't been negligent. OK. OK. We'll see about that. Yeah, thank you.