Posts Tagged ‘Interview’

Interview With Venus In Fur Director – Carin Jean White

Following an unforgettable 9 weeks of stellar musical theatre, Venus in Fur is heating things up in Rehoboth Beach! We met Director Carin Jean White to discuss the play’s significance in today’s world. Carin shares her insights on the MeToo movement, masochism, and human interactions, hoping the play will shift perspectives and spark reflection. Read our exclusive interview with Director Carin Jean White and join us for the opening of Venus in Fur on Thursday, September 19th, 2024, at 7:00 PM!

Performances on September 19, 20, 21, 22, 26, 27, 28, 29 in 2024!

Director Carin Jean White started acting at age 4 and directed her first play in high school. She then went on to attend Columbia University, where she earned an MFA in Directing. Favorite projects include creating an immersive theatre festival at Artpark in Western New York for an audience of over 2k, resident directing EMPIRE on Broadway (Speigelworld), and creating site specific dance-theatre pieces for DUMBO (Brooklyn) and the Prague Quadrennial (Prague). She believes that art is a powerful tool for reflection, the sharing of ideas, and developing empathy. She hopes Venus In Fur encourages us to examine human interactions and spark dialogue.

Carin Jean White is a distinguished director renowned for her innovative and thought-provoking approach to theater. Her work on Venus in Fur exemplifies her commitment to exploring complex themes and fostering deep emotional connections with audiences. White brings a unique perspective to every production she helms.

Here is our interview with Director Carin Jean White,

What is something that you think would excite our audience about Venus in Fur?

Carin: Venus in Fur is incredibly exciting because it delves into intimate and provocative themes. It explores gender and power dynamics, which are intriguing as they are evergreen themes about the human experience. And the play’s meta-theatrical elements add another compelling layer to the audience’s experience, especially when the lines between the play and the play-within-the-play begin to blur.

How does the play’s exploration of masochism and power dynamics resonate with today’s audience?

Carin: I think these themes are very relevant to today’s audience, as there is a lot more discussion of masochism, BDSM, and power dynamics- especially as it pertains to gender- in today’s popular culture. Someone doesn’t have to identify with the BDSM community to relate to these characters, themes, or topics. This play, which focuses on the interaction between a director and actress, reveals how power dynamics can shift rapidly in unexpected ways. The story is fascinating because it not only reflects historical narratives but also engages with contemporary thought on gender and sexual dynamics.

What makes the play’s themes so enduring?

Carin: The themes are timeless because they explore fundamental aspects of human interaction and desire.

Can you share what your favorite part of the play is?

Carin: One of my favorite aspects is the echo of Greek tragedy* within the play. It’s unexpected but adds a rich layer to the narrative. There’s a subtle nod to classic tragedy that enhances the play’s depth and resonance. *Greek Tragedy – When the protagonist or someone of importance and outstanding qualities falls to disaster.

How does the play relate to contemporary issues, such as the MeToo movement?

Carin: First let’s keep in mind that the play was written seven years before the MeToo movement occurred in 2017, and we are now seven years after that inciting moment. However, in my mind this play cannot be produced without considering this context. The character of Thomas, for example, represents a kind of opportunistic, misogynistic male director, and there is a kind of satisfaction in how Thomas has a bit of a comeuppance for his actions. Also, how Vanda’s power and agency are portrayed in our production is in response to the context of 2024. While the play was written in 2010, we as theatre artists must always ask “why this play, why now,” and Chris (actor playing Thomas), Eve (actress playing Vanda), and myself are working hard creating our answer to this question onstage for the Clear Space audience.

What do you hope the audience takes away from the experience?

Carin: I want the audience to enjoy the play and have fun. It’s a play that combines humor with heavy themes, providing both entertainment and thought-provoking content. Theatre has a unique power to create empathy and reflection, and I hope the audience gains insight into a part of the human experience they might not often consider and holds empathy for people whom the characters reflect. Venus in Fur offers a chance to explore topics that some audience members might typically not discuss, so there could be an interesting opportunity for conversation.

An Interview with Psyche Composer Jake Landau

This summer, Clear Space Theatre Company is partnering with LHW Productions on a three week workshop of a new musical, Psyche. The musical examines the story of the ancient Greek myth of Psyche, a mortal whose beauty outshone even that of the goddess of love Aphrodite. Adored by all, but never able to love another herself, she feels all but cursed. But when love finally comes, is that the true curse?

Performances are August 23 at 10:30pm, August 24 at 2pm, and August 25 at 2pm.

Psyche Composer Jake Landau

Jake Landau is the composer of the new musical Psyche. His works have been performed by the New York Philharmonic, Houston Grand Opera, and Premiere Division Ballet in venues as diverse as Carnegie Hall, Birdland Jazz Club, and the Royal Palace of Amsterdam. At age 16, he was accepted to Oscar-, Grammy-, and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer John Corigliano’s studio at The Juilliard School. At Juilliard and as a Composition Fellow at summer institutions including the prestigious Aspen Music Festival, Landau created his core body of work in chamber and vocal music.

At the same time, he worked in premiere pop music studios, experimental queer nightclubs, and as a pianist for both opera and Broadway productions. This unique background led him to a sound that at turns explores and ignores genre, in which hit-factory hooks interact with the concept-driven architectures of classical music—all in service of a theatrical worldbuilding lifted, in abstract, from fantasy novels. A graduate of Oxford University and The Juilliard School, Landau has been published by G. Schirmer (Ayres, for SA and piano) and Edition Peters (Hardware Love, for orchestra). Landau is the youngest-ever winner of the Walter Hinrichsen Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and one of NYFOS’S (New York Festival of Song) “9 under 34” composers. A graduate of both Julliard and Oxford, he is now on faculty at Julliard.

Clear Space chatted with Jake about his new musical, which blends musical theater, pop, and operatic styles in a rich and beautiful score.

How do you identify within the LBGTQIA+ spectrum?
Certainly B and hopping along the gray A spectrum, but I find the general Q the most relevant descriptor. The more you spend time with the differences between the letters, the less relevant those differences feel.

How has your lived experience as a member of the queer community impact or influence your work as an artist across your career?
Music, as the most inherently abstract artform, reaches deeper than any other. In musical theater and opera, it can universalize highly-specific stories, welcoming all into a shared emotion. Music’s ability to allow others into the humanity of someone they’d never otherwise understand is a magic I cherish.

Why does the story of the myth of Psyche appeal to you? Why do you think it is particularly resonant in our culture today?
Queerness isn’t just about who you love, but also how. While writing Psyche, Emily and I would joke that every character in the show was “bi until proven guilty” – gender wasn’t relevant to attraction here. This is because the show is most about how the characters love. In a contemporary world so focused on whom, and not the many kinds of how and why we love, we hope a show like Psyche will bring joy and nuance to one’s understanding of the love in one’s life.

Why do you think representation for asexual members of the queer community is important?
When people don’t see themselves represented in media, they think they aren’t supposed to exist.

How do you work together as a writing team?
We’re like if Gilbert & Sullivan liked each other.

What are you most looking forward to about the workshop in Rehoboth Beach?
Clear Space is a beautiful venue with fantastic people, and to share the project in such a queer space is a joy and honor. And the proximity to the beach doesn’t hurt.

What are you hoping that audiences in Rehoboth Beach will take away from seeing the concert readings?
It’s gonna be a fun, extraordinary, unique night. Broadway stars, opera, Ancient Greek—I truly just hope it’s a beautiful experience and believe it will be.

What do you hope to learn from the experience of Rehoboth Beach audiences at the concert readings?
We’re looking forward to seeing what parts of the show folks respond most to!

An Interview with Psyche Lyricist and Librettist Emily Garber

Performances are August 23 at 10:30pm, August 24 at 2pm, and August 25 at 2pm.

Librettist and Lyricist Emily Garber

Emily Garber writes the lyrics and the libretto to this new musical, alongside composer Jake Landau. Emily is a queer librettist, novelist, and poet who has always created stories inspired by the sky-high trees in her parents’ backyard and the irresistible magic of ancient myth. She has a Bachelor of Arts in Greek & Latin from Tufts University. Her work has been performed internationally by Broadway, West End, and Metropolitan Opera stars alike. Recently her one-act opera &Aeterna received its world premiere at the Narnia Festival in Italy, followed by a US premiere with Opera Idaho.

Clear Space sat down with Emily to talk a little about Psyche and her relationship to the material as a member of the queer community.
(Note that an abbreviated version of this interview appears in the August edition of Letters from CAMP Rehoboth.)

How do you identify within the LGBTQIA+ spectrum?
I identify as both aromantic and asexual, meaning that I do not experience either romantic or sexual attraction.

How has your lived experience as a member of the queer community impact or influence your work as an artist across your career?It’s interesting because although I have always been queer, I spent most of my formative years unaware that I was. After all, I’d spent my whole life watching movies and reading books where the main characters had never experienced any interest in romance or relationships until their “right” person came along– so I figured that I just hadn’t met that person, yet. And while I’d heard the word “asexual” before, I had always heard an asexual person described as someone who had absolutely zero interest in pursuing those kinds of relationships. And while that is an absolutely valid ace experience for some, it didn’t reflect my own at all. It was only halfway through college that I started to question why pursuing those kinds of relationships felt more like I was following an accepted script than something I actually wanted.

In an interesting way, though, I also feel like every time I tried to write a story, particularly one with romance, it never quite worked in the exact same way. I was following a script that someone else had written, and it showed. But the more I began to unpack my own very complicated relationship with intimacy and relationships, the more I was able to bring my own experience into my writing in a way that could never be as simple as “and they lived happily ever after.” Queerness, by its very existence, fundamentally challenges the concept that there is any such thing as “normal.” I take that to heart, not just by writing the stories of queer characters, but by writing stories that on a structural level, fundamentally challenge what it means to be happy and, even more, to be human.

Why does the story of the myth of Psyche appeal to you? Why do you think it is particularly resonant in our culture today?

Cupid and Psyche has always been one of my favorite myths. I’ve always been drawn in by the eeriness of it, and the romance. Looking back, I also think it appealed to me because in many ways it is an allegory for the ace experience. After all, Psyche falls in love with someone she can’t see. Attraction isn’t a piece of her story. It’s also rare to see a woman in mythology have as much agency in her story as Psyche does. She is her own hero, by the end, despite the story beginning with her entirely victim to other peoples’ machinations.

I think something about it that feels very timely to me, as well, is an underlying question within the story of “what lengths are you willing to go to for the people you love?” I feel like, increasingly, we are being pushed into a world where people aren’t placing as much value in actually showing up for the people they love in meaningful ways, or are only finding it acceptable to do so in their romantic relationships. And, I know so many of us are finding that to be lonely, and isolating. I think that this story reminds us about how powerful it is to go the extra mile– and that trust goes hand in hand with love.

Why do you think representation for asexual members of the queer community is important?
There are so many ace people I’ve talked to who have had experiences just like mine– who didn’t even realize that it was an option to be ace and spent years feeling as though they were uniquely alone. A word you hear over and over and over again is “broken.” Like you’re missing something crucial. And, given that most asexual representation we currently have in media is in characters who are actual aliens and robots, it only reinforces the idea that sexual and romantic attraction are the two things that make us fundamentally human. That you are missing something without them. So having ace characters who are deeply human, and flawed, and who have relationships that are just as deep and meaningful as romantic ones, is so important. Further, regardless of orientation, there are so many people in this world who don’t find fulfillment in romantic and sexual relationships. Platonic love is just as strong, and just as valid, and it deserves to have epic stories written in its honor the same as any romance.

How do you and Jake work together as a writing team?
Jake and I have been friends for two decades, so we know each other very well– and we share a love of all things fantasy that I think comes through in both our contributions to our work! We work really closely to make sure that the music and story are in perfect concert, and to build out lush and immersive worlds.

What are you most looking forward to about the workshop in Rehoboth Beach?
Of course, I’m looking forward to getting to know the absolutely beautiful town, but I’m also looking forward to working with the incredible team, here, and to get to use the space to bring this show to life in a new way.

What are you hoping that audiences in Rehoboth Beach will take away from seeing the concert readings?
I hope that they feel transported into a world of myth and magic, and find something in this show that makes them either question or understand more deeply their own relationships to the people they love.

Posts Tagged ‘Interview’

Interview With Venus In Fur Director – Carin Jean White

An Interview with Psyche Composer Jake Landau

An Interview with Psyche Lyricist and Librettist Emily Garber

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