First of all, you're a lifelong Boston Red Sox fan; so let me congratulate you on their recent World Series win. How does it feel to be celebrating for the second time in the past four seasons?
Thank you! A great warm-up question…sort of like taking batting practice before the game itself! I must say it was a lot less stressful than the first time around. For years (we) Red Sox fans grappled with the notion that our franchise was cursed—that it was our fate to watch our team ultimately suffer devastating defeat. Being a life-long fan and living in New York really brought this out in sharp relief. The Red Sox were always cast as the Norse gods opposite the Yankee’s Frost Giants; no matter how heroically they fought, it was decreed: the gods would be beaten by the Frost Giants. 2004 put an end to this romantic notion about being lovable losers. Now you could argue that there’s nothing very sexy about being a lovable loser, but, hey, if you’ve played the part long enough, you become pretty comfortable in it! Anyway, the 2007 World Series was about perceiving oneself and one’s team in a very different light. It didn’t make it any less enjoyable…only different.
Okay, on to business. Tell us a little bit about your play, Linnea, and how you came to write it.
Gee, I’d rather talk about the Red Sox! In a way, this ties in with the first question—at least regarding perception—in this case how a relationship is perceived. Time and distance gave me perspective on a one-time love affair; one I’d always found compelling, but had never been able to document in any satisfactory way. A good thing: had I written it soon after the time the play is set (the early 1990s), it either would have been mawkish or an angry rant. Back in 1991, I was adapting a play based on Dostoyevsky’s The Idiot, and I did hook up with a singular woman; the resulting relationship was uncannily similar to the love triangle in the novel being adapted. Over the years, I’ve come to realize that this young woman was a catalyst for change in my life. Now I hate most rites-of-passage films and plays; the young man trying to save the fallen woman… it’s a bit of a cliché, right? I guess that was part of the challenge: to make the cliché interesting and find a theatrical form for this story. Several years ago I directed Eurydice by Jean Anouilh for The Storm Theatre. It updated the Orpheus legend into modern times, and was an interesting mix of comedy and drama, of the naturalistic and the fantastical. Working on the play helped me appreciate that we all mythologize our lives, and, in particular, our loves. With Linnea, I was trying to write an old-fashioned-type Jean Anouilh play, set in the East Village of the 1990s. The story would still be based on the love triangle I’d stepped into when I was young and easy, but the periphery of the play would be taken up with theatrical types—for instance, a homeless person would take on the persona of a down-on-his-luck Shakespearean actor—two patrons of a topless bar would, without any explanation, transform into burlesque clowns. I don’t know if everyone got it, but I sure found the approach liberating. And, I should add that, by the time I figured out the form, enough years had passed since the demise of the relationship that hopefully I was no longer looking back (on it) with anger, but with a little wisdom, a little humor, and a little compassion. It took me a long time to get this one right, perhaps because it was so personal. And while it’s far from a perfect play, I do think its heart is in the right place! By the way, I have to thank “Big Pete” Dobbins and The Storm for backing me up on this one. Peter believed in this thing (when a lot of other people didn’t), and organized readings and workshops to help distill the material. I owe him a huge debt of gratitude… both for the production of Linnea and this next segue!
You are a founding member of The Storm Theatre. How was the company formed and how did you get involved?
It really started when Colleen Crawford introduced me to Peter Dobbins. At the time, she, David Brody, his wife Liz Reiss (who now runs the Three Rivers Arts Festival), and I were producing four Irish one-acts. We needed someone to direct one of the plays and Pete became that someone. I liked his passion for the material and his subsequent work. We began to hang together, mostly in Malachy’s Pub—found we shared a lot in common—including a love for a man who reputedly also hung out in Malachy’s: Ray Davies of The Kinks. Pete has often likened The Storm to Davies’ Village Green Preservation Society—an analogy I’ve always found charming. It was at Malachy’s that Pete first told me about his idea for the theatre company. From the start, it was his vision. Having formed numerous theater companies that had staged one-and-done productions, I was pretty burned out in the vision department. Still, Pete’s a pretty persuasive guy, and I decided to go along for the ride. Our first production wasn’t technically a Storm Theatre production—we did The Playboy of the Western World in a church basement for the Alpha and Omega Theatre Company; however we were beginning to assemble the core of people who would work for the company in the first few years. In 1997 we produced our first play under The Storm Theatre banner: T.S. Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral. Ten years after and we’re still going at it.
Speaking of ten years… coming January, The Storm is reviving The Shaughraun, a play we first staged in the spring of 1998. The production, only our second, was a difficult one. I think we all thought it might be our last. Then a gentleman named Martin Denton wrote a review for an online website named nytheatre.com that praised the production and the Storm Theatre. Talk about a morale boast! For the first time we started to think of ourselves not as a bunch of friends putting on shows, but as an entity: The Storm Theatre. Anyway the subsequent success of The Shaughraun put us in business, and now, ten years later, we’re (as Ray Davies would say) back where we started. God bless the Village Green and The Storm Theatre! And thank you, Martin!
You studied at the Stella Adler Conservatory with Ms. Adler herself. I have to ask what that experience was like.
Ms. Adler could be pretty intimidating—she was also mad as a loon! However, even in her eighties, she was a damned brilliant teacher, one with a laser beam-like insight into your acting strengths and weaknesses. I remember being in her scene study class. You had to be accepted into this particular class, and it was something of a big deal… celebrities sitting in, etc. (You haven’t lived until you’ve seen Shelley Hack of Charley’s Angels lore take a stab at Shakespeare.) At the Conservatory, Scene Study was more than a class—it was a Happening—one where you paid for the privilege of being flayed alive by Ms. Adler. Anyway, one night I took a deep breath, and signed up to do a monologue from a play called Dylan, about Dylan Thomas. Judd Nelson (this was before The Breakfast Club) got up right before me and attempted to do a Hamlet soliloquy. This was hubris on his part and the inevitable tragic ending ensued: Ms. Adler ripped him to shreds. “Darling, you have no technique!” And so on. I thought, “Yikes! Now she’s in a horrific mood! What’s she going to do to me?” Amazingly, I survived and got applauded for my efforts. And, of course, I went on to become infamous as a member of the “Brat Pack.” Oh wait...as Willy Wonka said: “Strike that! Reverse!” Seriously, I still carry around a lot of what Ms. Adler taught… try as best I can to pass it on. She was not just an acting teacher, but a teacher of life. One of her favorite sayings: “Your talent lies in your choice.” I love that because you can apply it to a lot of different things. Ms. Adler represents a by-gone era of theater—I mean, who else would get applauded when they came into a classroom? For all the panache, this was a tough-minded woman who demanded we learn a craft and taught us about men like Strindberg, Ibsen, and Chekhov—about big ideas and ideals. (Deep sigh.) I miss that.
You started out in film, then transitioned into theatre. Why the switch?
Chance. A lot of things in life are like that. I grew up in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. In high school I use to make super-eight films with cassette tape soundtracks. My buddy Jeff Ingram and I made a Sherlock Holmes spoof that finished second in a state film contest. I think we might have won, but we could never get the film and the soundtrack to completely synch up! At the time you wouldn’t catch me dead in a theatre. I was the captain of my high school hockey team and wouldn’t deign to associate with drama geeks. I moved to New York City to attend Fordham University. While it was hardly N.Y.U. as far as its film department went, I could still study film, write film reviews in the student paper, and, best of all, make my own movies. I also began acting in other student’s films, and really enjoyed it. Mind you, I still went nowhere near the theatre department, but, I was developing an interest. I began taking advantage of the student discount tickets—went to all the Broadway and Off Broadway shows. Also began reading plays and books about theatre history. Somewhere along the line, I learned about the Group Theater, Stella Adler and her subsequent career as an acting teacher. As I neared graduation from Fordham, I realized I didn’t know what to do with my B.A. in Communications and my future. I also was uncertain as to what, if anything, I wanted to do in film—or how to go about pursuing it. As a lark, I audition at the Stella Adler Conservatory, and, to my surprise, was accepted. I thought, “Why not?” What initially hooked me was Mario Siletti’s Shakespeare class. Mario was a special teacher who not only instilled in me my love for the Bard, but in many ways served as a role model for the kind of teacher I would aspire to be when that opportunity presented itself. Of course, back then, I was just gassed by the new world that was opening up to me.
You teach both drama and videomaking to New York City school kids. How did you first get into teaching and what do you like about it?
Josie Adler Oppenhiem (yes, one of the Adler clan) had directed me in the title role of John Osborne’s Luther. We’d become friends at acting school and later when she started teaching some drama classes at the Bank Street School, Josie hooked me up in the After School program there. My only experience with kids had been some work in summer camps in the Catskills, teaching some theatre programs… other basic counselor/camp stuff. Josie got it into her head that I was good with kids and really pushed my foot in the door at Bank Street, which is both a prestigious teacher’s college and school for children. I must say I defer to her judgment. I’ve worked at Bank Street nigh on twenty years now, going from a part time, after school gig, to being their fulltime drama teacher—or as one kid called me the other day: “Johnny Drama.” It’s a cool place to be—I’ve never taken an education class in my life—but they saw something in me, and nurtured whatever it was, and have been tremendously supportive, allowing a drama curriculum there to develop, providing digital cameras and editing facilities for the video program, etc. Working with children is hard. It takes a lot of creative energy, and gosh knows it has limited my productivity as a writer and my involvement with The Storm. However it can also be exhilarating and it pays the bills!
You've also directed a lot of Shakespearean productions with said schoolchildren. How do the kids respond to Shakespeare, in general, and are there any particular plays of his they respond to more than others?
Shakespeare is the only playwright who cuts across all barriers. Because he’s a great storyteller, he hooks children in, even younger kids who don’t fully comprehend the language, but still intuitively get the plays. For the most part it’s an easy sell. Our Shakespeare productions at school are pretty much done in rep—kids work their way up the ranks—the younger cast members play smaller roles—it’s less overwhelming that way. If they continue in the program, the roles improve as their language comprehension skills develop. Regarding which plays they respond to… obviously A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a no-brainer—far and away the most kid friendly of his works. We’ve done five or six of them—I’ve lost count. Interestingly, kids lock onto the tragedies more readily than a lot of the comedies. There’s a linear line to a tragedy—plus there’s ghosts, witches, battles, sword fights in plays like Hamlet, Macbeth, Julius Caesar, and Romeo and Juliet. The Tempest usually works well. Of the comedies, As You Like It, Comedy of Errors and Twelfth Night worked with kids; Much Ado About Nothing, not so well; Love’s Labours Lost not at all. This year we are trying out The Winter’s Tale; despite the adult themes, they’re getting into it. Go figure. I think in all we’ve done sixteen different Shakespeare plays and about forty productions. We’ll never get through the complete works; for instance, I can’t see us doing Titus Andronicus any time in the near future!
Is it true that you once drove the zamboni at the Rockefeller Center skating rink?
Probably the highest profile job of my life! I was on Live at Five, The Today Show; I hobnobbed with Regis (a certain symmetry in that!) and Martha Quinn, I pushed New Edition around on a sleigh during the tree lighting ceremony—we’re talking major exposure here! For those who don’t know, the zamboni is the ice-making machine found at all indoor and outdoor skating rinks. Driving said zamboni at the Rock… well, you’ve got quite a built-in audience there… tourists from around the world. This made it terrifying the first time I resurfaced—after all, you are driving on a sheet of ice! I had visions of hundreds looking on as I hydroplaned out of control, crashing through the boards and taking out Prometheus! Fortunately none of that happened, and I quickly grew to love the rituals involved in making new ice… filling the tank with water, backing her out onto the ice, lowering the conditioner and beginning the circular route… master of your icy domain. The key was to wear a Lee Marvin mask of indifference as you did your job—let the crowd ooohhh and aahhh—you’d been there and done it! Seriously, though, a fun gig! If they paid a little better, I’d still be doing it. I worked the Rock right after my acting school years. The reason I learned how to drive a zamboni was that you earned a higher wage than the rink attendants. Plus the drivers had instant status among the rest of the staff, and could hide out in the zamboni room where we stored cold beer in the snow piles accumulated from scrapping the ice off between sessions.
Artistically speaking, what do you have planned next?
I’ve written four drafts of a new play called Desolation Place, which I’m pretty excited about. It’s a hard one to describe—sort of Raymond Chandler meets Jean-Luc Godard—but set in this theatrical dreamscape with chorines and a character named Bobo. We’ve had one reading at the Storm and the buzz was good, so we shall see. We shall see.
Interview with John Regis was conducted by Michael Criscuolo January 2008.