Meet my new friends III - Margo Jones

Margo Jones

A Texan, a woman, a director, a spitfire. Jones pretty much single-handedly made regional theatre plausible.

She was a talented young director in the golden era of American stage drama, rubbing shoulders with Tennesee Williams and Elia Kazan, and after her experience with the Federal Theatre Project she decided she wanted to see theatre distributed to the entire nation.

In Dallas, she opened a theare-in-the-round and later published a book by the name "Theatre-in-the-round". She saw it as a vital, intimate and most importantly, cheap theatrical format that could be staged in warehouses, restaurants, or whatever was available to fledgling regional theatre companies. The success of her own theatre and the advice and advocacy given by Jones were considerable boons to theatres across the country.

In addition to a heart for regional theatre, Jones was also passionate about original works. She produced 57 new plays in her too-short career, and one third of those went on to be staged again elsewhere or be made into films or television programs.

A gutsy lady with a vision. Not very many female role models in this biz but Margot's a good one!

Meet my new friends II - Tina Howe

Tina Howe

Tina Howe is the honaree at Baylor's Bi-Annual Horton Foote Festival. I was largely unfamiliar with her works before coming here. I had read "Pride's Crossing" and lived near the town by the same name within which the play is set, but I didn't know much more than that. Howe's an accomplished, pulitzer and tony nominee who's plays dance lightly between realism and absurdism. I got to direct a ten minute piece of hers entitled Teeth. I liked the play.

Ysterday we got to meet with her (the entire department-175 people) and she's just what I'd hoped she'd be. Gracious, self-effacing and inspiring. She's been doing this thing for many years now.

We all got to ask questions and I squeaked out a graduate-sounding question. But what I really wanted to know was, "How many plays must you write in order to stop wondering if you are really a playwright?" But of course, that has a lot more to do with my shit than hers.

I get to have lunch with her in half an hour. I'll report anything Earth-shatteringly meaningful in the conversation or the food itself.

She's a very cool lady and I recommend you check out her plays.

The Nest
Birth and After Birth
Museum
The Art of Dining
Painting Churches
Coastal Disturbances
Approaching Zanzibar
One Shoe Off
Pride's Crossing
Skin Deep

Meet my new friends - Episode 1

One of the things about getting a proper education in a field you've been working in for some time, is that the names which have been bandied about for years are suddenly the people I'm studying and writing about. And THEN there are names I've never even heard before, but after studying them I wonder HOW have I missed this person my whole life. SO, I want to introduce you to some new friends:

Lope de Vega - He's written nearly 900 plays. Go ahead, read that sentence again. 900! He claims to have written twice as many, but even 900 is a feat. And they're not trash. Many, many many of them are quite brilliant. Making fanatastic use of smooth exposition 20 years before Henrik Ibsen (the father of modern exposition) was even born. Fast moving and well structured plays. And funny. Many very funny plays. This guy is the Spanish Shakespeare. And yet, because of the disdain shoveled upon Spain by the rest of Western Europe he's largely unknown to English Speaking audiences. But he was a great playwright and as best I can tell, a very cool cat. In Spain when something is outstanding it is described as being "de Vega". I hope my name is someday used as an adjective to describe good things. "That's a Bucking good play!"