BWW Interviews: Mark Brokaw, Director of OBLIVION

Mark Brokaw will direct the world premiere of Oblivion by Carly Mensch (Nurse Jackie, Weeds), which runs at the Westport Country Playhouse from August 20 through September 8. The provocative new play is about parents and teenagers and the gulf that exists between them. The cast includes Tony Award nominees JohAnna Day and Reg Rogers with Katie Broad and Aiden Kunze.

Mark is the director of the Broadway shows, Rodgers & Hammerstein's Cinderella, The Lyons, After Miss Julie, The Constant Wife, Reckless and Cry-Baby. New York premieres include works by David Auburn, Lynda Barry, Douglas Carter Beane, Eric Bogosian, Charles Busch, Julia Cho, Lisa Kron, Kenneth Lonergan, Craig Lucas, Nicky Silver, Paula Vogel, and Wendy Wasserstein. Regional includes Yale Repertory Theatre, Hartford Stage, Long Wharf Theatre, Guthrie Theater, Seattle Repertory Theatre, Center Theater Group, Huntington Theatre Company, La Jolla Playhouse, Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Sundance Theatre Lab, Eugene O'Neill Theatre Conference. He has directed at London's Donmar Warehouse, Dublin's Gate Theatre, and the Sydney Opera House. Upcoming: London's Menier Chocolate Factory. Mark is the artistic director of the Yale Institute for Music Theatre and Artistic Associate at the Roundabout Theatre Company. Raised in Aledo, Illinois, the graduated from Yale Drama School and did a Drama League fellowship. He won the Drama Desk Award, Obie Award and Lucille Lortel Award as Outstanding Director of a Play for How I Learned to Drive.

BWW: When did you first get involved in theatre and then in directing it?

MB: I thought I wanted to be a playwright or actor - but I really wasn't good at those things. I went the usual routes [starting in] high school. I have an undergraduate degree in creative writing, and during that time I started working in Champaign-Urbana with the Celebration Company at The Station Theatre; it was in an old train station right by the tracks. Trains still went by during performances. They do a lot of work - 12 shows a year, a whole broad range [of shows]. Some of the best work I've ever seen was in that train station. There was a real company feeling. That's the kind of theatre I like and the kind of acting I like - work fostered by a company spirit. I think I keep trying to recapture that.

Who were your biggest influences?

Directors. Garland Wright's work when I was coming up. Mark Lamos's work at The Hartford Stage Company. Hartford wasn't far away grad school [from Yale]. His direction of Peer Gynt with Richard Thomas was incredible - and basically all of the Shakespeare he did, which was a lot. I think I was very influenced by the work that he did. Garland Wright and The Acting Company would come through Champaign-Urbana. Those two opened doors that showed me what a director could do - have an active point of view.

What play just rocked your soul?

Garland Wright's The Country Wife [by William Wycherley] - a restoration comedy. I was a junior in college, and The Acting Company was on tour. It was the Rocky Horror Picture Show version of the play, a revelatory mix melded with this restoration play that really broadened my perspective of what was possible. I've never seen something so expansive. I was so lucky to work at Guthrie Theater years later in Minnesota. A lot of those actors from that production were in the company there. They were rock stars to me. It was so gratifying for me to tell them all what an influence they'd been.

What do you look for in a play? What do you do to add surprise and even spontaneity to a show with which everyone is already familiar, such as Cinderella?

I look for an instinctual connection, something that speaks to me - and that's different with every piece of material. The play speaks to you in a certain way. If it doesn't, it's not a play I can do. I feel passionate about that. It all comes from what's on the page. The point of view begins with the author. [In] Cinderella, Doug's [Douglas Carter Beane] point of view wasn't that the prince rides in and rescues a passive victimized Cinderella, but that the prince and Cinderella meet and rescue each other. I thought that was a very interesting and exciting way to look at the story today.

How do you get work as a director?

You could talk to 30 directors and they all have different stories. After graduate school, I thought I would go back to Chicago and do Shakespeare and Shaw. I did a Drama League Fellowship and came to New York, where I got connected with Robyn Goodman and Carole Rothman at Second Stage. I assisted Carole Rothman on the Broadway production of Coastal Disturbances, and that led to them giving me my first major opportunities in New York - directing The Rimers of Eldritch and The Good Times are Killing Me. Carly Mensch and I were hooked up through our agents. If you're working in New York it's because you love working on new material, so often times the work comes through the author as they search for a collaborator.

How do you juggle your roles at the Yale Institute for Music Theatre and the Roundabout Theatre Company?

At Yale it's heavy duty time from February through June [because of the] submission process. It's a program that supports emerging musical theatre writers. To be eligible they have to be within five years of completing their formal education. Two to three pieces are chosen each year to workshop up at Yale. The authors are hooked up with a full creative team, and the workshops occur in June.

What's great about [the Roundabout] is that it's an artistic home. It's a great place to explore material and see it if might be a good fit with the company. It's a life raft in a way, a supportive place you can always return to and the door is always open. Todd Haimes a very generous guy. You always have an artistic home there.

Sometimes people are confused when they read the bios of the unsung heroes. There is often a company that gets credit for the cast. How do you work with the casting people, the set designer, the lighting designer and the others?

The playwright, director and producer all have final say in terms of casting, so it's a collaborative effort. The director is the nexus in terms of how the design develops. The director is the person who gives the material its active point of view. He or she determines what the active struggle is that motors the play, and takes that to the design team [to] create a physical world where that can happen. When I meet with an author, I tell the them what I think that active struggle is. [It's important that we are] telling the same story. If I'm not telling the same story, then I'm not the right guy to work on that material.

What play would you love to direct that you haven't already?

That's a long list. The Cherry Orchard. Uncle Vanya (which I've done before), The Tempest. The Winter's Tale. Hedda Gabler.

What advice do you have for people who are interested in directing theatre?

The way to do it is to do it. Which of course is easier said than done. Everyone's way in will be different. Get the best rounded education you can. You need to know about everything - music, world history, arts, dance, literature. Then you want to find a like-minded set of people who like doing the kind of work you like doing. And that can be anywhere - New York, Chicago, Santa Fe, Seattle. And always be on the hunt for writers who write work that excites you.

To post a comment, you must register and login.