7. ASHEVILLE
Back in Two, I talked about the assignment Michael Rohd gave me and how it led to the first articulation of the AMC. Within that assignment was the idea of interviewing possible locations outside of Chicago...
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6. THE BALLAD OF ROMEO AND JULIET, PART TWO
During my third year of graduate school, I was lucky enough to assistant direct Mary Zimmerman’s Guys and Dolls at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and one of the perks of working there is a chance to do what they call a Midnight Project...
Read More5. THE BALLAD OF ROMEO AND JULIET, PART ONE
Back in year two of my graduate school journey, I took a class called Shakespeare Collaboration where we were divided into teams comprised of a director and designers and given the assignment to create a paper project of a production...
Read More4. THE FOURTH BRANCH
Prior to this past week, I had considered the subject of this blog as part of my full production branch. I realize now, however, that while the final product will be a full production, its ambition and journey is something altogether different. I am speaking about a community-based theatrical event...
Read More3. BRANCHES
Follow me up our metaphorical tree. American Myth is our root system, imbedded in the soil of our community. The Center is our trunk, providing the core structure of our organization. The branches, then, are the ways in which we reach out to our community. Our poems in the sky...
Read More2. CENTER
The idea for the AMC came from the culmination of my MFA thesis in Directing at Northwestern University. It was based on an exercise I did in class for Michael Rohd, which asked me to write a first day address to an organization or project that I might lead in five years. The address to the AMC came out in a flurry, but right before I was to turn it in, I made a key word change: theatre to center...
Read More1. AMERICAN MYTH
Myth is a loaded term. Mary Zimmerman, a former teacher of mine who has made a career playing in the world of myth, defined it for me as tales that we hold in our collective unconscious that primarily deal with origin stories which use the fantastical and often contain the supernatural. Others, she is quick to point out, use the term in the figurative sense by naming something a myth when they believe it is false, like bats are blind and bulls hate red...
Read More0. BIRTH
I want to share with you the American Myth Center’s birth story. Its seed came from John Steinbeck. Back in 2015, I was assistant directing Terry Kinney on Frank Galati’s adaptation of East of Eden for Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago...
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