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UNM student and budding theater director Stephanie Grilo has come a long way since her first directing gig in high school, in which she didn’t even plan out the lighting before the performances.
“I literally sat in the light booth with my director during the first performance and told him what I wanted,” she said. “He was basically improvising on the spot for me. That’s something I had to learn: that you have a paper tech, you sit and talk about what qualities of light you want — directional lighting, key lighting, stuff like that.”
Grilo directs a one-act play — “Soft Dude,” by Joe Pintauro — in the Vortex Theatre’s production of a series of one-act plays titled “I Wanna Hold Your Hand.” The other plays in the production are Anton Chekhov’s “The Marriage Proposal” and Tennessee Williams’ “The Lady of Larkspur Lotion.”
Grilo said she now knows that lighting is one of the many areas to which a director has to devote his or her attention.
Grilo, a former cheerleader and athlete, said she never imagined doing theater as a career. But after getting involved with the art form in middle school, she said it’s similar to sports.
“Theater is psychologically complicated and it takes a lot of work. It’s similar to sports too, in that you’ve got an ensemble in a show, you’ve got a team of players,” Grilo said. “You all have to work together to win. In theater it’s not necessarily competitive, but there’s definitely integrity that you’re trying to strive for in a production.”
Grilo said she was quickly drawn to directing because of the skill sets it requires.
“I like being an acting coach, and I like getting my actors to a place where they feel like they’re out of control of themselves and they break the barrier,” she said. “It’s growth, and I love watching that happen before my eyes.”
But she said working with actors can also be the most difficult part of directing.
“The hardest part is actually getting your actors to do what’s in your mind,” Grilo said. “It’s a big communication thing; having similar vocabulary is very helpful. I had an actor who I’d never worked with before, and we didn’t have the same system of language, so we were a little lost in translation at times. But that’s something that all directors ever have had to deal with.”
One-act plays typically range from 10 to 40 minutes, so one might assume they are easier and less time-consuming to direct than full-length plays. But Matthew McVey Lee, president of UNM’s student production company, SCRAP, said one-acts have their own challenges.
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“In a one-act you have to make really strong choices,” Lee said. “Directing, you really have to pay attention to the character development and make sure the characters are immediately evident to the audience, and that they can understand the rising action, the purpose of the story. You don’t have a lot of time to beat around the bush.”
Both Grilo and Lee applied for “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” through the Vortex’s Young Directors Program, which gives young directors the chance to work with a professional company. Lee will direct Chekhov’s “The Marriage Proposal.”
Lee said the plays that make up “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” span multiple eras and genres, but they are still tied together by a common thread.
“Each of the plays builds with people in a relationship where there may be a certain amount of yearning in the relationship and obstacles,” Lee said. “‘I Wanna Hold Your Hand’ is indicative of a desire to not just reach out and hold somebody’s hand, but also the characters’ yearning to create or improve their relationships.”
I Wanna Hold Your Hand
Friday and Saturday 7:30 p.m.
Sunday 2 p.m.
The Vortex Theatre
2004 1/2 Central Ave. S.E.
$10 students, $18 general admission
Call (505) 247-8600 or visit vortexabq.org to reserve tickets
