Two by Tennessee

Plays by Williams Set to Take the Stage at Interlochen and Parallel 45 Theatre

April 8, 2016

American playwright Tennessee Williams may have been slow to success, toiling for years before receiving any recognition, but once he hit it, he really hit it with a series of plays that are considered stage essentials even today, with many of them also adapted to film. Two of those plays are being staged right here in northern Michigan this month.

"The Eccentricities of a Nightingale" at Interlochen Center for the Arts

Directed by Robin Ellis

Robin Ellis has been an instructor of theater at the Arts Academy for 27 years. "The Eccentricities of a Nightingale" will be the third Tennessee Williams play that she’s directed at the Academy, "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof " and "The Rose Tattoo" being the other two.

"He’s my favorite playwright," Ellis said, "and this play is often referred to as his "˜neglected masterpiece.’" "Eccentricities" actually got its start as a more well known Williams play called "Summer and Smoke," which got its start as a work titled "Chart of Anatomy" when Williams first began writing it in 1945. By 1964, he’d revised the entire thing as "The Eccentricities of a Nightingale."

Set at the turn of the 20th century, "Eccentricities" centers around the unmarried minister’s daughter, Alma Winemiller, and follows the unfolding – and ending – of a romance between her and John Buchanan, the undisciplined doctor who grew up next door.

Third-year Interlochen student Ella May Hunsader plays Alma.

"I’ve not worked with her before, but this is the first lead role she’s had at Interlochen," Ellis said.

Playing John is fourth-year student Gabe Halstad Alvarez, who Ellis directed as the prince in last year’s Interlochen production of "The King and I."

"It’s nice to reward these students with such meaningful roles," Ellis said. "And it feels good as a director to watch these people mature in their craft. They’re both very fine students and both are a joy to work with."

While some of the topics explored in the play may seem mature for high-school actors, Ellis explained that it’s an important part of their development to work with all different types of material. "We expose them to complex playwrights, Shakespeare, musicals, world theater – everything," she said.

The stripped-down set design is strong in form and dark colors, both of which leave plenty of room for the characters, dialogue and subject matter to fill the rest of the space.

"We have such a wonderful design team working on the design elements for "˜Eccentricities,’" Ellis said. "We haven’t modernized it; the play is still set in the early 1900s, and our costuming still reflects that time period, but we’ve departed from a strict approach to the stage design and have taken a more symbolic approach, which is something that Tennessee Williams was often fond of, as well. So, I’m thrilled with it."

Interlochen Arts Academy’s production of "The Eccentricities of a Nightingale" will run Apr. 15–16 at the Harvey Theater on the Interlochen Center for the Arts campus. For tickets and more information, visit tickets.interlochen.org.

"A Streetcar Named Desire" at Parallel 45 Theatre

Directed by Kit McKay

Kit McKay is the Artistic Director of Parallel 45 Theatre, a Traverse City–based professional theater company she founded with her friend and colleague Erin Anderson Whiting (the company’s executive director) after spending years pursuing and honing her directing craft across the country.

"I actually started at Interlochen as a student," McKay explained. "That’s where I met Erin."

It was her first semester at Interlochen when she saw the school’s production of "A Streetcar Named Desire," directed by acclaimed Arts Academy theatre instructor David Montee.

"That was one of the best plays I’ve ever seen," she said.

"It was all about the storytelling and the acting; the level of truth and complication portrayed on stage was astonishing. That was the moment I realized what good theater looks like. I still talk about it with my old classmates from Interlochen."

Following Interlochen, McKay attended Sarah Lawrence College in New York and became "lifelong friends" with Whiting, who also schooled there.

"That’s where I got interested in directing," she said. After college, McKay spent several years in New York City, freelance directing, including directing projects by new playwrights. She subsequently directed theatre productions at Interlochen for 10 summers and also completed a Master of Fine Arts degree in directing at Northwestern University in Chicago. It was there that her next big project unfolded.

"Erin visited Chicago while I was at Northwestern and suggested that I bring all the theater I wanted to do up to Traverse City, so we decided to start Parallel 45," McKay said. "We talked about ways we could combine our professional experiences to create something new and exciting in a place that we both loved," Whiting added.

For the past six years, McKay, Whiting, their staff and an expanding company of theatre artists from around the world have focused on building Parallel 45.

McKay’s interpretation of "Streetcar" is very different from her initial introduction to the play, a decision she made purposefully.

"Ours is much more post-modern than David’s," she said, "because everything in his version was realistically and carefully depicted, right down to every prop – it looked like a movie set – but ours is a stage in the round, which gives our audience a more active role in watching it, not via audience participation, but just getting people to feel like they’re really in Stella and Stanley’s apartment." Whiting agreed, "The idea is to draw the audience into this very tight, very insular world, to bring us very close to this story."

"Streetcar" features the homeless and mentally unstable Blanche DuBois, played by Parallel 45 founding member Katherine Dillingham Mazer, as its main character alongside her sister Stella and Stella’s rough husband, Stanley, played by New York City–based actor Jacob Knoll.

McKay added an onstage device outside of the original script in order to emphasize Blanche’s internal state throughout the play.

"We have a choreographer and a dream chorus," McKay said, "four dancers doing movement who slowly reveal themselves to be the demons that Blanche is battling with. The chorus gives the actress something to fight against."

Still, "Streetcar" remains the same script-wise. "It is absolutely the story our audience may already know and love," Whiting confirmed.

At the heart of the play, McKay said, are challenging themes she feels reflect Williams’ own struggles, including the significant dysfunction of his family and the drastically changing times happening around him.

"You can see that in the deep nostalgia and the clawing to survive that’s in this play," she said. "This is a flawed heroine trying to survive in a new environment, so I wanted to show the forces she’s battling with in a real way. I think the play is telling us that we have to keep up the job of seeking beauty, no matter what – and that’s Blanche. She fights and fights and, in the end, only fails because of her circumstances. So I think this play honors those who fight."

Parallel 45 Theatre will produce "A Streetcar Named Desire" at the InsideOut Gallery, 229 Garland Street in Traverse City. The show will run for six performances Apr. 27–May 1. For tickets and more information, visit parallel45.org or call (800) 838-3006.

THE DIRECTORS TRADE OPINIONS

Both these directors are fans of Tennessee Williams, so when we told them there would be a second Tennessee play in production Up North during the same time as theirs, they were equally delighted to hear the news.

Robin Ellis on "A Streetcar Named Desire"

"Well, that’s one of my favorite plays of all time! I haven’t had the chance to direct it yet, but I’d love to. It’s so difficult to cast – you really have to know that you have your Blanche and your Stanley. They’re both such challenging roles and the play itself is very complex, mature material that’s so beautifully written. We did a production of it here [at Interlochen] in the "˜90s, directed by David Montee, and it was stunning."

Kit McKay on "Eccentricities of a Nightingale"

"Oh, I love it! David [Montee] and Robin [Ellis] were actually the first people to introduce me to that play. Robin is so smart and was my first teacher at Interlochen. Then, when I went to college, I took a class where you had to play one character for an entire year – I’m truly not much of an actor, my skills lie in directing, but I spent my year being Alma [the lead of "˜Eccentricities’], so that play is really special and personal to me."