by Amber L. Earls
Daily Lobo
What can I say about directing "Garage" in Words Afire? Well, it's crazy, but very rewarding - especially when you have very talented people to work with.
"Garage," written by Heidi Griffin, is a short one-act play about how parental abandonment affects two sisters, Sarah and Molly, by strengthening their sisterly bond and forcing them to grow up. I won't go into complete detail because it's more complicated than that, but the whole play centers around Sarah's memories of her childhood up to the present.
At first I wasn't interested in directing anything for the Words Afire Festival. Not because there weren't any good plays to direct - "Garage" proved to be a good one - but because I had heard that it was much harder to direct a short piece for Words Afire than directing a full-length play in Theatre X.
You have to learn to share. You share a budget, designers, if there are any, a stage manager and not to mention actors with the other plays in Words Afire. And rehearsals? Well, almost all the people involved are UNM theater students or in the theater community, so basically everyone is in everybody else's show. Because there are so many plays being produced during the festival, everyone is scrambling for rehearsal space.
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What made me change my mind about directing a play in Words Afire was my own selfish need to direct a play this semester. It's what I do. It's my major. Another theater student was slated to direct "Garage," but couldn't for personal reasons. When I heard, I volunteered to do it.
It became a good experience for me because it kept me on my toes and presented a good opportunity to work with a great playwright and some very talented actors who I've never worked with before.
Most good plays produced nowadays are already thoroughly edited and published and cannot be changed unless the playwright grants permission. This is not only rare, but completely unfeasible in most cases. Something I got to experience as director that really helped the whole process was having the playwright at some rehearsals, giving feedback, and saying, "Thank you," not only to me, but the actors too.
The whole Words Afire Festival is basically a learning tool for everyone, especially playwrights. I don't want to admit this, but for Words Afire, directors, actors and designers are there to bring the playwright's work to life. They give it a vision and supply feedback on any discrepancies in the script and things that may not be working with the script.
The playwrights don't have all the power over their work, but they do give valuable insight into their plays. Words Afire gives a higher meaning to the phrase, "Theater is a collaborative art."
Directing during Words Afire is a bumpy, enlightening experience - I recommend it to any playwright, actor, director, designer and, especially, any audience member. So get off your bums and go see some new works this week.
The Words Afire Festival is running at Theatre X, the Tricklock Theatre and the Vortex Theatre through Nov. 24 and the National Hispanic Cultural Center Nov. 14-17. For further information about the festival, call 277-4332.
