fbpx Interview with Kate Whoriskey | HowlRound Theatre Commons

Interview with Kate Whoriskey

Vincent Delaney: You work with fantastic playwrights—Naomi Iizuka, Julia Cho, Lynn Nottage, to name a few. What is the ideal playwright/director relationship for you, and how does it form?

Kate Whoriskey: The ideal is when there’s a mutual understanding of the direction of the material. Both artists are skilled and intent at crafting the same idea. A playwright can use words and the director can use movement and words.

Vincent: Trust and communication.

Kate: Yes. Neil Pepe said something a long time ago—I think I was 23 and went into his office, not knowing any better—he said something which has stuck with me: as a director, my best advice is don’t talk just because you feel you have to talk. Especially with young writers, you can destroy their intent by talking around something you don’t really understand yourself.

Your job as a director is to fully understand the intent of a playwright, before you can really move. If you feel like you don’t understand the material, don’t force it. And that advice was really important—there’s an impulse as a young director to want to seem like you’re on top of the material. It’s actually your job just to listen and to understand what the person is going for.

Vincent: That calls for a radically different set of skills than, say, working on Ionesco. Do you prefer new plays?

Kate: I like a fifty-fifty mix of contemporary and classics. With the classics there’s an incredible sense of structure. With a new play you’re not the lead artist in the room. The writer is the lead artist, not the director. It’s a very different game.

Vincent: How do you find scripts and writers? Do you prefer to work with playwrights that you know already, or discover new voices?

Kate: It always seems sort of like the question, how did you find your wife? How do you find that right mix? I’m interested in anything that’s appealing to me. To be honest, my collaborations have often been set up by theaters. South Coast Rep set me up with both Julia Cho and Lynn Nottage, which were wonderful relationships. And I read scripts.

Vincent: How will you match writers to directors, now that you’re an artistic director? What will you look for?

Kate: I think the writer should often call it. For example, we’re doing Sleepy Hollow next season. I asked Chloe Moss to do the adaptation, and also who she’d like as a director. She said she had a great experience with Annie Kaufmann, and I said great, fantastic. I think it’s great when writers and directors have history together, it’s not essential but it’s helpful. The whole process is much easier.

Vincent: What is the single most important role for an AD?

Kate: It’s to make work that’s socially relevant. For me. For other people that’s different. Seattle is a politically and socially conscious place. I think Seattle has real questions of civic responsibility—they see themselves as a community together, unlike many other cities in my experience. There’s a commitment to making Seattle work. Audiences here like art that is civic driven.

Vincent: You’ve directed in Seattle several times over the years. I remember your production of Ionesco’s The Chairs, which is still in my mind after ten years. How has your life changed going from itinerant director to an artistic director with a home base?

Kate: I think until I got here and watched an audience for a season, I didn’t have that sense of the Seattle aesthetic. Everything tends to feel like a one-off. As a freelancer it felt so odd, coming in, not knowing the people, making something, and before I even knew what the response was, I’d leave.

Vincent: As an itinerant playwright it’s often the same thing—I fly out, watch opening night, and then I go. I’m left with so many questions: what did my play do for your community, why did you do the play? Do you have any “aha” moments you can share from working closely with a playwright?

Kate: My trip to Uganda with Lynn Nottage. I remember Lynn, her husband Tony, and I were floating down the Nile, white water rafting, and it was absolutely terrifying. Our guide was saying things like, if the boat tips over, make sure you swim to the left, because if you swim to the right, you’ll die. It was that quick—I felt like I had to get this information, and I’m not athletic. We’re in the boat already, and the boat’s already tipped over a couple of times. At this point I said, I’m going to pull over and get out. I don’t want to do this anymore, I’m done. And Lynn was really surprised that I was getting out of the boat. I didn’t have my wallet, my passport. I remember walking down the Nile thinking, I’m a coward. I walked down to meet them at the end of the trail, and I see Lynn and Tony and they both have these incredible responses. And I thought, that must have been the most amazing thing they’ve ever done. But she said, you made the absolutely right decision. Tony had gone underwater for about fifteen minutes and she couldn’t see him. And he popped up and she said, in the twenty years we’ve been married, I’ve never seen this expression that he had when the boat came back up. It was absolutely terrifying.

I think about that as the moment you’re looking for in theater—that actual aha—sometimes you have it in life and it transfers to theater. Lynn and I had so many moments of genuine discovery in Uganda and a lot of those transformed into Ruined—we learned on that trip that that the anticipated feeling is often not anything close to the experience. And so we were always in rehearsal playing with the counter—for example, this scene is a dramatic scene, but let’s find the most joy in it—we were always counterbalancing. That was such a pivotal time for both of us, working on that play.

Three actors sit at a table in the play Ruined
Pictured in Goodman Theatre's world-premiere production of Ruined by Lynn Nottage, directed by Kate Whoriskey are (l to r) Quincy Tyler Bernstine (Salima), Cherise Booth (Josephine) and Kevin Mambo (Commander Osembenga). Photo by Ruined production photos.

If there was anything I’d love to change, it would be giving playwrights a larger canvas. Most are always trying to... make a play producible. We’re really missing out on the opportunity to give these minds who have committed to writing theater the opportunity to address what’s happening nationally, internationally

Vincent: Let’s talk about the system for new play development in this country. Is there anything wrong? Do we have a systematic problem that alienates individual artists?

Kate: I think financial pressures are limiting what playwrights can address. If there was anything I’d love to change, it would be giving playwrights a larger canvas. Most are always trying to keep their cast size down, a unit set; they’re aware—as they should be—how to make a play producible. If you look at the great plays, Williams, O’Neill, they were not concerned about that. We’re really missing out on the opportunity to give these minds who have committed to writing theater the opportunity to address what’s happening nationally, internationally.

Vincent: How do we fix it?

Kate: I wonder about setting up some kind of co-commissions with other theaters. A playwright would create the epic American play, in the course of five years we’d commission five plays, do readings, and potentially produce. Theaters need to start collaborating more.

Vincent: How can playwrights become more integrated into the life of a theater?

Kate: I don’t think they should be. I think Molly’s idea is amazing. Playwrights should get paid, they should have health insurance, be treated with a certain respect. I do not think they should show up to an office. Frankly, even when I prepare my own work on plays, I don’t come to this office. It’s very unfocused, people come in, go out. I think writers should not have to report to the office.

Vincent: But in a general sense, the idea of knowing that you are connected—you have a real personal, financial, professional relationship to a theater—

Kate: That I think is great. Theaters are trying to afford associates who are playwrights, that would get paid.

Vincent: Thank you for being so forthcoming and engaged. We’re very excited to have you here in Seattle.

Bookmark this page

Log in to add a bookmark

Comments

1
Add Comment

The article is just the start of the conversation—we want to know what you think about this subject, too! HowlRound is a space for knowledge-sharing, and we welcome spirited, thoughtful, and on-topic dialogue. Find our full comments policy here

Newest First

This is a great interview. I agree- playwrights should be part of the theater with benefits included~ especially on a long term basis. It gives the playwright time to write and rewrite and engage in the process of really hearing their play and forming a community around their play that is essential. I believe it is so important for playwrights (at least, for me) to have a space that is part of a theater to use for play development - with actors- and to have expectations as deadlines that come along with that...