Elaine Smith Writes

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Category Archives: Directing

October Project

Mythic music.

I found October Project in one of those weird episodes of synchronicity that happen in every life.

Once upon a time, I was an early-career director in NYC.  I got asked to direct a lot of readiings.  It’s a great way to gain experience in some, although not all, aspects of the directors’ craft.

Anyway, I landed a gig directing a reading of a short piece called A Play on Words by Eileen Weiss.  Eileen’s play was funny and quirky and full of marvelous writing.  We gathered actors and set to work.

One of the actors we gathered was a young woman named Julie Flanders.  Julie and her husband Emil Adler had just started a band.

October Project.

And Julie gave me a CD of their self-titled debut album.

So, of course, I listened to it.

And wow!

Intricate vocal harmonies.  Clear crystalline voices.  Haunting melodies.  And beautiful, evocative, even mythic words.

So, here is a link to a music video of October Project’s Return to Me from that album.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gm9kQdIFObY

And another, Ariel, which I love because of the connection to Shakespeare’s The Tempest.  (Flapdoodle!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ga53vmcb2s

And you can find Julie, Emil and Marina here.

Oh, the reading?

We did it at Barnes & Noble.  It went great!

History lives

It’s walked out of the books and onto the screen.

My grandfather collected books about Lincoln.  Abraham, not Nebraska.  I’ve read a few of them.  Not all, by any means.  So, I know a bit about our 16th president.

Most citizens of the United States do.

He’s one of the few that everybody remembers and everybody reveres.

Sometimes, we forget he was a masterful politician.

Go see Stephen Spielberg’s new movie, Lincoln.

It’s going to sweep the awards.  It deserves to do so.

What a gorgeous film on practically every level.

The acting—across the board—superb!  Daniel Day-Lewis is the Lincoln I would have requisitioned if I could have imagined the perfect actor—and my imagination would have fallen short of this performance.  The supporting cast:  David Strathairn, Tommy Lee Jones, James Spader, Sally Field, Hal Holbrook and countless others disappear into the time and the story and the persons.  After the first flash of recognition, all their star qualities, the tricks and trademarks, vanish as if they had never been.  We are watching William Seward, Thaddeus Stephens, W. N. Bilbo, Mary Todd Lincoln, Preston Blair.

The script is fascinating.  Based largely on Doris Kearns Goodwin’s A Team of Rivals, Tony Kushner has transcended the usual bio pic to give an in-depth study of the machinations surrounding the passing of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution.  The wheeling and dealing, the lofty ideals and the base political machinations are all laid out before us.

The cinematography is beautiful.  The film is shot in a palette almost indescribable.  Suffice it to say that the historical details of setting and costume are crisp and clean, and yet, the whole thing has a patina of age, a not-quite-sepia tone of old photographs.

The direction—okay, I have a few quibbles—but the overall achievement is of such high quality that I’m not going to pick nits.

The score—one of the few movie soundtracks I feel I ought to buy.

I am going to buy the DVD.  The minute I can.

This movie is a FIND.  With a capital F.I.N.D.  Run—with a capital R—to see it.

What becomes a legend most?

Sharing their stories!

Everybody loves behind-the-scenes info.  Don’t they?  I know I do.  I love to hear how writers and actors and producers got started, what they remember most about their work experiences, what advice they have for others aspiring to similar achievements.  It’s fascinating.

Of course, it’s best if it’s someone whose work you know, but an opportunity to hear from someone you’ve never happened to encounter is a gift, too.  It can open your eyes to treasures you might not otherwise find.

Agnes de Mille came to speak at my college once.  I’d heard of her.  I knew she was, famously, the choreographer for the original Oklahoma.  What I didn’t know and was delighted to discover was that she was a terrifically entertaining speaker and a wonderful writer.  I went and found her books, learned a great deal and enjoyed them thoroughly.

Harold Clurman, John Houseman, Vincent Price—all became doors into new information once I had the opportunity to hear them talk.

So imagine my glee when I stumbled upon a website created by the Television Academy Foundation which hosts over 700 oral history interviews conducted in-depth with the legends of television.

EmmyTvLegends.org

There are over 3000 hours of interviews with actors, writers, directors, newscasters, tv executives, technical gurus and more.  And they are not drive-by, promote-the-project-of-the-moment interviews.  They are hours-long, thoughtful discussions.  What I always thought talk shows should be and almost never are.  (Dick Cavett’s show being a notable exception.)

It’s all fascinating.  Sometimes funny, sometimes inspiring, sometimes eye-opening. The interviewers are good.  They ask excellent questions, and they stay out of the way.  Interesting facts come to light, and personalities are revealed.

You can spend a lot of time there.  So, be warned.  But spending your time in the company of some of our most creative people?  Is there any better way?

‘Show me this world. Open me. Change me.’

“There are those rare people who can look at the world and see things the rest of us don’t see until they show us. These are the writers. There are the special few who can take that vision and turn it back into a world. These are the directors, the designers. There are fearless beings who can live in that world and show us who we are. These are our actors. There are dedicated people who know why that world matters so very much. Crew, theater staff, producers, investors, managers, marketers. And then there are the people who step forward and say ‘Show me this world. Open me. Change me.’ These are our audiences. And when all of these people come together and say ‘Yes’, there is theater.”

–Jordan Roth in his acceptance speech for Clybourne Park winning Best Play at the Tony Awards in 2012.

Yes.

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