Art Feeds the Soul

Contributed by Jeanne Travis

I was a stage manager long before I was a sound designer; a director and actor long before I was a stage manager and a flautist and composer before I can remember. I have been very fortunate enough to find or attract multifaceted people. I love to work with artists who are easily bored, take risks, make mistakes, collaborate, work hard and are generous.   

If I had known early on in my life what opportunities there were to fuse both music and theater into a career I wouldn’t have had to wage war with myself for the many years that I tried to pick one or the other. If you are born to be an artist you must pursue what you're wired to do. Living anything else is living a lie. Picking music over theater to me was like asking me which leg I could live without. I wish that I would have never tried to believe that I had to choose. Artists think on a level that cannot be measured. They invent, ponder, create, imagine, edit, summarize, synthesize, store and evaluate information with all fives senses. I once directed two horror Grand Guignol plays from their original 1890s texts. I felt amplified. “This is what I want to do for the rest of my life” an actor told me in rehearsal. It was from this experience that I started to look at art from a completely new perspective which would eventually lead me to design. I also realized from this experience that the greatest reward an artist can ever hope for is to inspire others to create.

  “Most people live to create.  An artist creates
     in order to live, because art feeds the soul.”
                                                                   ~ My Mom

To me, creating art is like coming home. I like to be around my kind! I was so incredibly fortunate and humbled to accept the IT Award for sound design last year for Nat Cassidy’s The Temple, or Lebensraum. I just remember that I didn’t want to let anyone down; especially Nat. Everyone involved was so incredibly multi-talented. Above all, we were all amped and called to inspire one another and I have never felt so much support on a daily basis on a show before. I love independent theater. You meet the best people. I believe that in order to be successful artist you have to be a generous, kind, and wonderful person because from this centeredness flows a spring that the soul feeds on in order to create. Off and Off-Off-Broadway attracts like minded artists that thrive in this community.

I forget how extremely exposed sound is sometimes. It takes a fearless ambition to be a sound designer. To shout an idea, literally at high volume, takes guts. It is also a sound designer’s job to seduce you into a state of total unawareness that we are ever there. This allusion intrigues me and it challenges me. I have been very fortunate to work with playwrights who know how to wield sound design to their advantage. To be able to offer a playwright the assurance that their imagination should not be hindered by any limits in sound is the ultimate reason why I do what I do.

I have just started to play the flute again. I doubt that I will ever step foot into a costume ever again or have the strength to ever direct again. However, I am easily bored, I take risks, I make mistakes, I work hard and I'm generous. It's what I'm wired to do. Who knows what will happen next?
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Jeanne Travis is a composer, sound designer, stage manager and flautist. She composes daily and plays the flute at Judson Memorial Church. Sound Design credits include: Utility (The Amoralists Theater Company), The Temple, or Lebensraum (Tin Drum Productions), Woyzeck (No Win), Leave Me Green (Form Theatricals), Asymmetric (59E59), Frankenstein Upstairs, The Honeycomb Trilogy: Advance Man, Blast Radius, Sovereign (Gideon Productions), Rantoul and Die, Enter at Forrest Lawn (The Amoralists), Luft Gangster (Nylon Fusion). Stage Management credits include: Six Rounds of Vengeance, Untitled Vampire Cowboys Project, Alice in Slasherland (Vampire Cowboys), Final Analysis (Pershing Square Signature Center), Spectral Scriabin (Lincoln Center), Sir Patient Fancy, As You Like It, The Wonder (The Queen's Company). Special credits: Retro Productions Company Member since 2008. With Retro: The Tender Trap, The Desk Set, Holy Days, Dear Ruth, Benefactors, The Runner Stumbles, A Day in the Life of Joe Egg. Awards: WINNER 2015 New York Innovative Theater Award for Outstanding Sound Design: The Temple, or Lebensraum (Tin Drum Productions). Upcoming Projects: PSM: Thoa's Library (All For One) and SD: Universal Robots (Gideon Productions).

Opening Doors

Contributed by Stephanie Willing

As a child I knew I wanted to be an actor, but not in an all-encompassing “This is my dream!” kind of way. I also wanted to be a marine biologist, a writer, an equestrian, a ballerina, and when I was very young, either a unicorn or a dinosaur--whichever happened first.

My early acting career was uneventful but satisfying. When I was handed my first script at Bible camp with highlighted lines, I was ecstatic. Later when I auditioned and won the part of the (I now realize) caricatured Jewish innkeeper’s wife in the Christmas play, I was triumphant. And when I played the Virgin Mary in sixth grade with a pillow tied under my robe with my father’s leather belt, I was happy. I dropped that baby weight with a slip of the belt loops, but I never dropped a line.

And then I stopped acting because I still wanted to be a dancer/writer/martial artist/
equestrian/ecologist. As the eldest of four in a household of specific and limited means, I was told, “Pick one.” I chose dance and stuck with it for the next twelve years, all the way through college, thanks to scholarships. Then, like many artistic and nerdy folks, I went to work for a couple years in a used bookstore, saving money and glorying in the dusty pages of potentiality. One day, while shelving a tray of battered romance novels, I knew in my bones what I had to do. Go to New York and be an actor/dancer/stage combatant!

While still in Texas searching Craigslist for jobs and auditions in NYC (I’d never heard of Actors Access or Backstage), I clicked on a “volunteers needed” ad for something called the IT Awards. I responded, emailed, confirmed. It seemed like a good place to begin my reconnaissance; I figured I could meet people, learn the names of the theater companies, and see what kind of work was being made. I found short-term housing in the Bronx, booked a one-way ticket, and flew to New York City. My first week in town I was an usher at the 2008 New York Innovative Theater Awards.

That was the year that the Vampire Cowboys swept with Fight Girl Battle World. I only saw screenshots of the cast and costumes, but I was in love. I was in awe. I said, “I need to know these people.” Again googling, I found The Saturday Night Saloon and signed up for the Rabid Vamps Fight Studio (the VC’s stage combat and choreography class). Through the Saloon, I met the folks behind Gideon Productions, Nosedive, and The Brick.

My first acting opportunity came through those connections, and I was cast in The Ninja Cherry Orchard with a huge bevy of actors that blew me away. Since then, almost entirely, every part I’ve played or production I’ve choreographed has come through a connection that began in 2008, even down to the man I married.



Stephanie Willing (left) performs with the Vampire Cowboys in the
Opening Number of the 2010 IT Awards

Just like my two years in the bookstore, I had found a group of passionate nerds who always had room for one more, and just like that, Indie Theater became home. I can directly trace my path in NYC theater from that single moment standing at the back of the auditorium at the IT Awards manning the doors. If you were there that night, you probably didn’t see me. You saw your friends, the wonderful people of our community that I had yet to meet. But when I held the door open for you to walk into the auditorium, I was also opening all the doors I’d walk through for the next eight years.
 

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Stephanie Willing is a dancer/actor/choreographer/stage combatant/voiceover artist, so the childhood dream is working out so far, but she’s still working on the marine biologist bit. She received a BA in Dance from Texas Woman’s University and studied Fight Choreography with Qui Nguyen of Vampire Cowboys. She is currently an MFA candidate in Creative Writing for Young People from Lesley University. Upcoming projects include fight directing for Flux Theater Ensemble’s production Rizing, opening May 2016. She will also be performing as Joan of Arc in MTWorks’s production of David Stallings’ Anais Nin Goes to Hell in October 2016.

Gideon Productions receives Donn Russell Fund Grant

For many, Gideon Productions is the ideal Off-Off-Broadway theatre company. This sentiment is easy to understand. Because their work is based on popular genres and cultural touchstones, they are often at the forefront of trends and themes being presented on stages across the U.S. The fact that they explore "what's strange about being human and what's human about being strange," gives their productions an element of knowing intrigue and a sense of humor. However, it is their dedication to crafting a quality experience and employing some of the most skilled theatre artists in the community that makes them so admired by their peers, audiences and critics.

"Gideon is a role model of what indie theatre can and should be." 
                       ~ Mariah MacCarthy

 

Hanna Cheek in Sovereign

"Gideon makes theatre that grapples with big questions while never forgetting to find the comedy within the drama and the sorrow behind the shtick. It's what makes their shows next level special. Every play births a whole world and community, from the rehearsal room to the audience.” ~ Hanna Cheek

 "I am always drawn to Gideon's unflappable desire to push boundaries and take risks; their driving, giddy passion to produce fantastic, cutting-edge original work; and the fact that they just make cool stuff that may, on the surface, seem kind of 'out there,' but always manages to circle back to the human condition. Alien invasion? Demonic possession? Assisted suicide? Espionage? Naval musical? Nothing is off the table for these guys" ~ AL Pearsall

"They cast diversely, stay true to themselves, and are transparent. They don't pander to an audience. They do their thing. And they do it damn well. They might be the craziest people in the theatre right now and we love them for it.” ~ Diana Oh

“Gideon Productions is awesome because it is my home.  I was going to qualify that with 'my artistic home' but it goes far, far beyond that.  For over a decade, Gideon has given me the chance to exercise my muscles as an actor in so many ways: as a flamingly homosexual Coast Guard chaplain, a female psychic, a Neocon war monger, a blind romance novelist and a particularly brutal CIA interrogator.  And it's been wonderful...but that's the stuff that everyone can see.  What you can't see is the time Jordana mobilized to make sure I had Gatorade backstage when I was performing Fleet Week sick as a dog.  You probably don't know that Sean went out of his way to make sure the cookies I like were backstage during the run of Asymmetric when I had to perform on what would have been my late partner's 47th birthday.  You may or may not have been in the room all the times Mac gives his actors far more credit than we deserve because saying his brilliant, beautiful words is the easiest job any of us will ever have.  And they'll forgive you easily and quickly when you might have a out-of-all-proportion meltdown backstage shouting, 'I AM IN A RAGE' to anyone and everyone.  The reason Gideon is able to pull off something like The Honeycomb Trilogy is because they've built a big, beautiful house and have invited us all to live there.  They are family.  They are, as Connor says repeatedly at the end of Advance Man, home.” ~ Rob Maitner 

“Gideon Productions breaks, and opens, my heart, and intoxicates my mind, with every story and staging; epic, and strange, and oh so beautifully human. I treasure every chance I have to place myself in their hands, as an artist and spectator. Vagabonds often know exactly what feels like home. For me, it's Gideon.” ~ Kristen Vaughan

Kristen Vaughan & Diana Oh in Frankenstein Upstairs

The cast of Universal Robots

“Gideon Productions creates high caliber work that takes risks and takes it's audiences on joyous, dynamic rides. Their work is consistently solid and impactful.” ~ Jason Howard

“Gideon Productions' massive ambition is only eclipsed by their considerateness and kindness. They won't do something unless they can do it right. And it being right is not only that the production be excellent, but that everyone involved is treated with respect.  There's no corner-cutting; no convincing themselves that they can do without something that demonstrates that respect to their cast, crew, designers, and audience. Just that level of attention and work is monumental for an independent theater company. But that's not hard enough for Gideon. So Gideon decides to do crazy ambitious productions of difficult plays.... Wonderful plays, genius plays, beautiful plays.  Sometimes I imagine their meetings playing out like a game of "dare or dare" where they push each other to make everything better." ~ Stephen Heskitt

"Gideon Productions is awesome because the brilliance of their work is consistent and unmatched. When you have one of the best writers working today joined with one of the best directors in the country, throw in a designer/technical director that can make miracles from nothing, and then back them up with a gifted producer and producing team that will settle for nothing less than utter excellence and service to their audiences, you get something truly special that cannot be found anywhere else. Gideon's value can be estimated not only by the fierce loyalty of their fan base, but also by the loyalty and trust of everyone who works with them." ~ Brian Silliman

"Gideon is honest and sincere to their artistic team. I enjoy the community that they create with each production. It is a pleasure to know that as a designer, actor or audience member, you are appreciated and heard. I believe that this desire to connect with everyone on every level of production creates an environment that encourages growth and support.” ~ Jennifer Wilcox

"As artists, they are not experimental. They are not 'trying stuff out.' They are not devising and they are not deconstructing and they are not mashing-up. Gideon does the harder thing: they tell challenging, twisty, sharp, emotional stories. They gather great actors in front of great audiences with great production values with great staging to perform great plays. It's harder than it looks. Or, rather, it's exactly as hard as it looks.” ~ Matt Freeman   

Rebecca Comtois and Mac Rogers in Ligature Marks

We are honored to present Gideon Productions with a grant from the Donn Russell Fund. This money will be used to support their upcoming production of Universal Robots, which will open at the Sheen Center in June. They are currently raising funds for this project so please, join us in supporting this deserving company by making a donation (go to: http://www.gideonth.com & click on the link that is on the bottom of their page).

Congratulations to Gideon Productions for receiving a Donn Russell Fund grant!

  Learn more about Donn Russell...

Frankenstein Upstairs

Frankenstein Upstairs
By Mac Rogers
Directed by Jordana Williams
Produced by Gideon Productions

Nominations: Diana Oh is nominated for Outstanding Actress in a Featured Role; and Frankenstein Upstairs is nominated for Outstanding Premiere Production of a Play



About this Production
The power keeps going out in Sophie and Marisol's apartment. What exactly is their neighbor - a strange recluse named Frankenstein - doing up there? Frankenstein Upstairs is an emotionally charged new science fiction thriller.


Playwright Mac Rogers, Director Jordana Williams and Actress Diana Oh talk about creating this intimate production about love and loss that takes on sci-fi proportions.

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What attracted you to this project/subject matter?

Jordana: I reread Mary Shelley's Frankenstein before we started work on Frankenstein Upstairs. The creature's story was just as heartbreaking and gripping as I remembered, but I couldn't believe what a selfish schmuck Dr. Frankenstein was. I couldn't muster up an ounce of sympathy for him.

In Mac's story, it's Dr. F who starts out alone and friendless, eavesdropping on the lovers downstairs, yearning to belong with them--to belong anywhere, really. There are a million things I love about Mac's writing, but this gets at the heart of it. His characters may do unspeakable things, but they always have compelling reasons.

Also, a Frankenstein story where both the doctor and the creature are women? Sign me the hell UP.

Diana: The people. Gideon Productions is an artistic family that works hard, loves hard, and plays hard. I knew that signing onto the show meant working with artists who were passionate, fearless, and tirelessly dedicated to their work. Jordana Williams, Sean Williams, and Mac Rogers--this badass trifecta--are trailblazers of the theatre--always experimenting with content, execution or form. There was so much in Frankenstein Upstairs I'd never done on stage before. They love theatre so much, are so great at making it, and are so true to themselves--thats an energy I always want to be around.

Mac: My answer to this question is a bit weird, as my initial inspiration is so far from the finished product. I originally was interested in the idea of someone losing their intended life partner at a much younger age than one would expect to have to deal with that, and what they would do with the opportunity to bring that person back to life. What's it like to go partway into the grieving process and then stop? I like stories where you have to constantly question and re-assess how you feel about what's happening, so that struck me as an interesting starting hook.

But then of course the impish side of my brain kicked in and was all like, "I mean, if you already have a third character who can bring people back to life, why not actually just have that person be Frankenstein? Why settle for off-brand?" Which led me in turn to re-reading Frankenstein, at which point I became besotted with Mary Shelley's genius all over again, and the play began to morph. It reshaped in a number of ways as a response to Shelley's novel, particularly in terms thinking about how the story would be different with mostly women as the primary characters, rather than mostly men. The epigraph Shelley put at the beginning of the novel - "Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay to mould me Man? Did I solicit thee from darkness to promote me?" - became a guide, the idea of the non-consensual creation of life. And I became very excited by the idea of splitting the characteristics of the Creature among multiple characters, so it's not straightforwardly clear which one is Frankenstein's Monster.

What was your favorite part of working on this production?

Jordana: I adored this cast: Diana's ferocity, Rob's dignity, Autumn's nuance, Kristen's genius ("Let us be truthful."). They were everything I could have wanted and more.

Diana: My co-actors, the powerhouses Kristen Vaughan, Autumn Dornfeld and Rob Maitner (whose sense of humor is always the best medicine). For me, it's always the actors and their awesome personalities. We become the children to a creative and design family all taking care of and supporting us, it's impossible not to bond on and off stage. I live for how vulnerable we become with one another--and we were all over each other in that show--mouths, sweat, and tears.

Mac: I loved developing the script alongside the artists who would be working on the production. We don't always get to do that, but I was able to have developmental readings with the whole producing team, all the designers, and some of the actors. I was able to incorporate their early creative thoughts into the script, making it a much more cooperative enterprise than usual.

On a personal level, my favorite part was the audience response to my wife Sandy's set design. People would walk up to me - the actual playwright - and talk about the apartment setting before talking about the rest of the show. I'm a neurotic, I can't process compliments directed my way properly, but compliments for Sandy make my year.

What was the most challenging part of working on this production?

Mac: Oh man, we so totally underestimated how difficult the scene-changes would be, what with having to set up a surgical theater and an operation and then take it away - almost entirely during between-scenes blackouts. It was amazingly complex, and a real testament to the cast, running crew, and our SM Nikki Castle that we pulled it off.

Jordana: Mac and I lied to ourselves a bit about this one. We thought this was our "little relationship play" after the madness that was the Honeycomb Trilogy. I don't know why we thought that a play with open heart surgery and reanimating a dead body--both on stage, in full view of the audience--was going to be easy, but it really, really wasn't.

Our designers stepped up big time. Sandy created a set so sumptuous that numerous audience members said they'd like to live in it. She also made plausible-looking medical equipment on a tight budget. Jennifer and Jeanne did so much to sell the whole "She's ALIIIIIIIIVE!" process with lights and sound. Amanda's costumes said so much about who each of these characters were. Stephanie built us an entire fake surgery chest with removable little flesh-y bits! I mean, come on.  

Diana: Being dead. Laying still, playing dead for a whole long scene but also being alert so I didn't miss a cue. Kristen and Autumn have very very beautiful soothing voices--it was hard.

What was the craziest thing that happened during this production?

Diana: Mac Rogers wrote it. That kinda hits all the marks right there. Also, the special effects Stephanie Cox-Williams brought in were cool--I mean really really cool--she designed heart surgery for live theatre.

And, we can't talk about Frankenstein Upstairs without talking about the set Sandy Yaklin built. It was out of this world. I can listen to her talk about building for hours, it's very sexy and I'm fascinated by how her brain works.

Jordana: Opening night, the power went out. No stage lights, no tech booth. Fortunately, the work lights were on another breaker and there were dim emergency lights. Our stage manager Nikki didn't miss a beat. She took the works out for scene changes, which we did by emergency light only. She ran the sound off a laptop and speaker connected via extension cord to a working power source outside. When the emergency lights burned out, Nikki just started calling "lights up" and "lights down." We offered the audience the option to exchange their tickets for another performance, but it wound up being a really magical night.

Mac: Easy question to answer for this show: on our opening night, there was no power to the grid or the sound-board. And a full-house expected to attend. Oh man, were we freaking out. Ultimately - once we determined how to do it safely - we did the show anyway, under fluorescent lights, with the sound cues played on a laptop. By the end, our SM Nikki was just yelling out "Lights Down" between scenes rather than turning the lights off. The cast rallied beautifully, and the audience became incredibly supportive (as audiences often do when you run into this kind of thing) and the evening ended up being kind of a big success. I mean, on the whole, I preferred it when audiences got to see Jennifer Wilcox's lights and properly hear Jeanne Travis's sound, but there's something magical about an audience and a production team rallying in tandem to overcome adversity like that.

What did you want the audience to come away with after watching your production?

Jordana: My hope for all of our shows is that the audience will see themselves in someone they never expected to relate to. I also want them to be entertained throughout the show and have a lot of stuff to think about (or argue about with friends) afterwards. For me, that's the trifecta.

Mac: On one level? Uncertainty. Conflict. Contradictory emotions that don't settle for a few days. On another level? The feeling that they've had a splendid evening of entertainment. What I like to ideally serve up is comfort and discomfort in equal, alternating measures. My favorite stories always have both.

Gideon Productions

Gideon Productions did some groundbreaking work this year producing a trilogy of sci-fi plays and negotiating a group discount on a performance space.


We asked Executive Producer Sean Williams to tell us about these exciting developments.

What are the origins of Gideon Productions?

In 1999, Mac Rogers was having a bit of writer's block at the same time as I was drowning in booze in Los Angeles. He wrote a play called Dirty Juanita and sent it to me to read, it was three characters and three hours and I was completely in love. Jordana and I had just been cast opposite each other in a short film and she was flying back to New York, so I told her I wanted to move and start a theater company, and would she like to produce plays with me and Mac. To both of our surprise, she said yes.

Mac and I had produced a play the summer after our last year in college in 1996, a musical version of As You Like It with a bunch of Chapel Hill bands playing the music, and we called the company "Gideon Productions". When we initially talked about starting the company in New York, Mac called it Gideon Productions as a shorthand and we just never came up with a different name.

Very early on, the three of us discovered a very specific aesthetic which we don't have a name for but we sometimes call "opposition". There is very clearly a character who is the hero... and we're attracted to when she does something just awful. There's a moment that is clearly very, very comic, and we're attracted to making the audience feel like crying right then. If we want to tell a huge story, we focus on one or two people, if we want to tell the story of a brother and sister, we create a worldwide apocalypse.

Mac and Jordana are particularly brilliant at doing this together. If Mac writes a very dark moment, Jordana fights like crazy to humanize it. If Mac writes a really light comic moment, Jordana does everything she can to find the depth in it. My job is mostly just to sit there and marvel at their genius.


Gideon did some groundbreaking work this year. What was the imputes to produce a sci-fi trilogy?

I think there is a growing group of indie artists who are affected by movies and television more than other plays. We definitely love creating work for the stage and we all want, more than anything, to continue to work in the theater, but we find the pace and plotting and subject material from film and television speaks to us. I might be wrong, it's impossible to know when you're in the middle of a movement, but it feels like the companies around us are excited by Battlestar Gallactica and Breaking Bad, rather than, say, Krapp's Last Tape.

So, we've always wanted to play with established genre. Hail Satan is like an office comedy mixed with a horror movie, Fleet Week is a cry for social justice disguised as a postwar musical, even Dirty Juanita is a discussion of straight male love affairs wrapped in an after-school special about domestic violence. When you use genre specific language, you can skip over a lot of the stuff that drags a play down. If your characters are Ninjas, and you find out that one of them killed the other's master, then you know what the deal is - they're mortal enemies, you can skip all the stuff about why.

Now, I should admit that Mac came to us and said "I think I'm writing a trilogy that's way too big for us to produce, and I don't even know why I'm doing it because it's gonna take a million dollars to create on stage... but I can't stop myself." And Jordana, Sandy and I said, "Do it. We'll figure it out," without having a SINGLE CLUE how we were gonna do it. Tim Errickson at Boomerang came to me and said, "I think we can work together to do this" and he totally saved us. He's the one who made it possible, by suggesting the BFG collective.


What where the benefits and challenges of producing a trilogy of plays?

The challenge is making the decision about exactly how to pace the programs. We have a firm belief that you have to be careful about asking too much from our community without being willing to invest more than you're asking. We are avid theater-goers and we believe strongly in supporting our brothers and sisters in the arts, with money whenever possible but more importantly as audience members.

The challenge was to figure out a schedule that would string together the pieces but wouldn't ask more from our community than they wanted to give. The LAST thing in the WORLD we wanted was to have people grudgingly showing up to our shows thinking they had JUST seen something we produced, but we also wanted to make sure that the last piece was reasonably fresh in the minds of our audience members. Another challenge was convincing audience members that they didn't have to have seen any previous installments to enjoy the current production.

But MAN, once people got invested in the characters, it was an absolute thrill to watch the second and third installment with everyone. Because we're seeing the adult versions, in the third play, of the kids in the first, we get to see how our parents influence our lives long after we're gone and forgotten. Mac got to watch the first play, and it informed rewrites on the second, just as watching the second informed rewrites on the third.

There were so many tiny moments in the last piece Sovereign that delighted the audience. When Ronnie hands Abbie a cellphone and says "I want you to have it", when she twists the alien's ear and says, "it's all right if you want to cry" - these moments were put in the third play by Mac because of the impact of the first play. Nobody ever gets to do that, it's an absolutely singular experience. It makes me feel like we should always do trilogies, exploring different genres. We could do fantasy, we could do a backstager, we could do political thrillers... if Mac would write it, I'd do it every year, regardless of how difficult it is to do.


Gideon worked with Boomerang Theatre Company and Flux Theatre Ensemble to rent a performance space essentially at bulk rate. What was that experience like?

I'd like to be clear about this - we did negotiate a good rate on the space, but that wasn't the most important aspect of working with these other companies. We saved money on several big ticket problems like space - namely, we shared expenses for publicity and on load-in and load-out of the space, we shared physical set pieces and we shared labor on construction - but more than that, we were a support structure for one another over the entire six month stretch.

Normally, you only have your own company to go to for security. But when we hit something crazy, we could write an email to the entire collective and say, "am I nuts? Did this just happen?" and you've got like-minded artists who can say, "yeah, weird..." or just as likely, "I can see why you think that, but I think it makes sense if you look at it this way..."

We had each other's backs. When I saw their shows and liked them, I had a sense of ownership and pride - these were all of us that did this. And when Gus and Heather from Flux saw Sovereign, they just beamed at us, the way my sister and brother beam at me when they see my shows. When any of us found out we had big reviewers come in, we'd send out an email and everyone would rally. It was a really beautiful relationship and the only reason we can't continue is because our three companies are moving at different speeds.


Do you think that more productions will employ this kind of collective bargaining?

It's difficult to say. Boomerang and Gideon have been around for over a decade, and Flux is the new kid on the block at something like eight years old. If other companies want to create a collective just to keep prices down, they might find it difficult to move as a collective because they might not have the same sense of artistic like-mindedness or producerial maturity (for lack of a better word).

In order for a collective to work, you have to be fully committed to producing at the very highest possible level, but you have to be flexible enough to not sweat the specifics too much. Many companies, particularly young companies, feel like they are going to change the world and have a manic sense that NOW is the time for their greatness, but in order to remain open to working in a collective you have to allow for other big thinkers and other leaders to take the reins.

If I am going to conjure up the very worst part of working within our collective, I'd be hard-pressed to come up with anything negative to say. But that's because all of us were capable of allowing the other companies the latitude to do what they needed to.

Tim at Boomerang was always making sure we weren't using our collective bargaining to shortchange anyone, so some of our negotiations would chill a bit under his direction. Flux has its own collective, in a way, so while Gideon and Boomerang could make a decision in 5 or 10 minutes, we'd have to wait a day or so for Flux to weigh in on decisions. My emails are always eleven sentences longer than they need to be.

If we were younger companies these would be obstacles, but we've been around long enough to know that none of these things are even problems, they're just personality quirks and are actually lovely. Think about it - Tim was always making sure we weren't screwing anyone and Flux was always weighing each decision carefully... and these are the worst things we can say about each other.


What is Gideon's next project?

We don't produce by a calendar, we work out of a kind of compulsion. Mac is currently working on six scripts for the stage, a screenplay and a pilot for TV. As soon as one of his stageplays takes on a life of its own, we'll know what we're producing next. More than likely, we're looking at the late spring of 2013. If Mac hasn't written anything, I have a whole host of playwrights I've been dying to produce, so we'll see where we are by the end of the year.

Shaun Bennet Wilson is constantly in demand as an actor, so we're trying to make sure she has the space to take on every possible opportunity. She's so brilliant, seeing her on stage is just a miracle and the rest of Gideon is trying to make sure we have the chance to see it as much as possible before she's on stage in our next show.

Jordana is directing for a whole host of other companies. She's doing Kill Shakespeare at ComicCon this year, and directing one acts and readings for, it seems like, half the indie theater companies in New York. Sandy is designing and building sets for the other half.

Congratulations Gideon Production!