A Year Full of Passion, Talent and Enchanted Evenings

Contributed by Jeff Thomakos, Artistic Director of Water Works Theatre

Well, another Water Works season is drawing to a close and I can hardly believe it. I knew it was going to be an odd year, when I met Ed, our executive director for coffee last fall and broke the bad news. The Purple Rose made me an offer I couldn’t refuse and I wouldn’t be available this season to direct anything. Ed was amazingly understanding and off we went to prepare for the season.

First, there was our Winter Fundraiser. To celebrate our ten years as a company, we invited every single person who has ever been a part of our shows that we could get a hold of. We then did scenes from all ten of our shows with original cast members reprising their roles. It was wonderful, but…phew…it was a lot of work. I spent months tracking people down, leaving voicemails and emails, and convincing people to come perform for us for free in the middle of winter. The task was daunting, but somehow, it turned into an amazing, enchanting evening that everyone thoroughly enjoyed.

Meanwhile, I was also hiring our artistic team. Don Hunter, a key person for us for the last two years, was moving back to Indiana and I had to find a stage manager who could fill his rather imposing shoes. Fortunately for us, Emily Pierce came in for an interview and I was completely wowed. Add to that, the great Emily Bowyer as Stage Manager for Commedia King Arthur and a huge weight was lifted.

This year we were also lucky enough to bring in Barton Bund as a director. Our team knew that we wanted to do a comedy this year, but we weren’t really sure which one. We didn’t want to repeat ourselves and do something we had already done like Midsummer or Much Ado. Love’s Labours Lost and Merry Wives of Windsor were thrown around a lot, but nothing seemed quite right. Then in walks Bart who says he’s willing to direct anything we want, but was really passionate about Two Gentlemen of Verona and felt he had a winning concept for it. Since it is my feeling that it’s best when directors direct shows they are passionate about, the decision to do Two Gentlemen of Verona with Bart as director was a no-brainer for us. His passion for the material beams from the stage every night and as a result, everyone has caught a bit of it - the actors, the audience…even the dog.

Bart suggested we bring in the brilliant Monika Essen who last worked with Water Works in our critically-acclaimed co-production with Performance Network, Nine Parts of Desire. What’s more, he convinced us to bring her in not only as a set designer, but also as the costume designer as well. As a result, the artistic vision of the show was unified in an amazing way. Everything compliments each other, everything fits.

With Shannon Kennedy and Tom Niemkeiwicz as Production Manager and Master Carpenter respectively, our super, amazing production team was assembled. All that was left was the casting.

Those of you who have already seen the show know what a fantastic cast we have this year. It’s a great mix of familiar Water Works faces like Rusty Mewha and Sara Wolf Molnar and new faces like Tommy Simon and Kevin Young. Everyone in the cast is fantastic. I am quite jealous.

You have one more weekend to experience this unique event. One more weekend to sit under the stars and laugh, and hear poetry and watch talented people take interesting characters to amazing places. Please come, and then tell us about your experience. If you are like the 10,000 other people who have seen a Water Works show, then I think you will find it to be unforgettably wonderful.

The Director's View

By Barton Bund, Water Works Theatre 2010 Director of The Two Gentlemen of Verona

Working on The Two Gentlemen of Verona is like discovering a new play by your favorite writer. The guy is brilliant, we all know this, and we know some of his plays so well that we have a hard time seeing new productions. We compare it with others we have seen, or as actors, we tend to judge productions based on the different choices we would have made. At least I do.

This is different, because there isn’t some incredibly well-known legendary production starring John Gielgud. Even though I am sure he played all the roles in this show at various points in his life. We get to go in fresh. With young actors. We have so little frame of reference, so little historical whatnot to cling to, that we get to create a whole new world for ourselves.

Our Verona is a small town, a provincial dead end. Moving to Milan means stepping into the world of art, culture, fashion, and women. Very desirable for a young man with nothing to lose. We have set our production in the mid-1960s, a time of change. Think about maybe a few years after Mad Men, but just slightly before the Summer of Love. A world on the brink of change. And I don’t just mean the fashions. The politics, and the politics between men and women, were in flux. A perfect fit for Two Gentlemen.

These women are independent. They travel alone, they choose their mates, they run the entire cycle of life. And by cross-gender casting the role of the Duke, and playing her as a very hip, progressive modern gal, we have established a wonderful dynamic. This is the sexual revolution. But boys mature slower than girls. Men still struggle with women’s lib, just as much now as ever before.

The play is as good as Twelfth Night or Much Ado About Nothing. It gets done a lot less often, and it’s because it’s deceptive and complex. It’s like a screwball comedy with all the slapstick and sex jokes, but with a brain. Think of The 40 Year-Old Virgin. A guy comedy on the surface, with all the Animal House/Trading Places/Soul Man kind of low humor. And now imagine it written by the guy who wrote Antony and Cleopatra. What you get is a comedy with a capital C, but you also get some complicated insights into the nature of love, and why love is so darned complicated.

When two people fall in love, they are tossing a boulder into a still pond. The ripples are felt everywhere. All the odds are stacked against them. It is possible that the real love story here is between our two gentlemen. They try to remain friends, but when they fall in love with two terrific women, they act like fools. They make all the wrong choices, and plunge everyone into peril.

I love the play, and I’m so glad to have young actors with me who are willing to try anything. We have to get pretty silly in order to get a very serious point across. And what is our point? By the end, I’m not really sure. We get our hearts broken, but we had fun, didn’t we? As Marvin Gaye wisely said, “That’s the way love is, baby. Sho nuff how it is.”