Interview: Giovanna Sardelli of KING JAMES at TheatreWorks Silicon Valley

Sometimes in life, even in the context of a job interview, it really does pay off to just be yourself and speak your mind rather than tell people only what you imagine they want to hear. That is the lesson Giovanna Sardelli unintentionally learned the first time she met Rajiv Joseph. Erroneously assuming she had already been hired to direct his play Huck & Holden, she wasted little time on niceties and launched right into identifying the parts of the play that she found confusing. Instead of being offended by this, he was impressed by her extensive preparation and eagerness to dive right into the work. Not only did she subsequently get hired for that job, almost 20 years later the two of them are still working in collaboration, currently on King James at TheatreWorks Silicon Valley which marks their 17th production together.

The title King James refers neither to the Bible nor British royalty, but to basketball icon LeBron James. Joseph’s funny and moving new play is definitely about basketball, but perhaps more than that it is the exploration of a volatile friendship between two men as they grapple with life’s twists and turns over a number of years. Following on well-received runs in New York Off-Broadway, at Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre and LA’s Center Theatre Group, King James is now in its regional premiere production at TheatreWorks. Joseph’s writing is known for its inventive intertwining of comedy and dramatic tension, often in stories involving cultural dislocation. His career shot into the stratosphere with Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo, a 2010 Pulitzer Prize finalist that had an acclaimed Broadway production starring Robin Williams and Arian Moayed.

Sardelli is certainly one of the busiest people in the theater world right now. After more than a decade working for TheatreWorks in other positions, she was appointed as the company’s Artistic Director just over a year ago at a time when the company was in particularly dire financial straits. Rather than minimize the criticality of the situation as so many other regional theater companies had done, Sardelli and her team chose to be completely open about it and launched the ultimately successful “Save TheatreWorks Now” $3M campaign. While they’re not entirely out of the woods yet (Sardelli says they are still in “repair mode”), they have continued to not only produce high-quality art, but also foster the creation of new works, something Sardelli is especially proud of.

I caught up with Sardelli by phone last week to talk about King James and her enduring creative partnership with Joseph as well as check in on how things are going now that she’s in her second year as Artistic Director. Sardelli was unwaveringly upbeat while openly acknowledging the serious challenges the company continues to face. If, as she puts it, “every day is a roller coaster,” she is definitely up for the ride. The following conversation has been condensed and lightly edited.  

I believe you have quite an extensive history working with Rajiv Joseph.

Yeah! We counted today and King James is our 17th production together.

Wow! Obviously, the two of you just sort of “click.” What do you think it is that makes the relationship work?

We both come from storytelling families and cultures, so magical realism and heightened theatricality are just in our DNA. I’ve always loved that Rajiv writes such human, theatrical stories and he’s always doing something profound with his writing in the way he creates tension and then the comedy and tension and drama live side by side. It’s one of my favorite styles of writing, and I love directing that because it requires a real skill. Rajiv is the kind of writer who makes you better at what you do – actors, directors, designers, everybody. And I’d like to think we’ve played some small part in making him better over the years, too.

How did the two of you first come into each other’s orbit?

I was just beginning as a professional director and he’d just graduated from the NYU Dramatic Writing Program and was part of something called the Cherry Lane Mentor Project. His mentor happened to be Theresa Rebeck who knew me and thought we would make a wonderful team. I had an interview with the Cherry Lane producers, Angelina Fiordellisi and Pam Perrell, around Rajiv’s Huck & Holden and they said, “Come back and meet Rajiv.” I didn’t really know how directing worked and I certainly didn’t know how new plays worked, so I just assumed that meant I had the job.

I read the play and the next day I came back, sat down and he asked what every playwright asks, “What did you think of my play?” Because I thought we were starting our actual work together, I said, “I really enjoyed it, but I’m super confused about these things…” and spent about a half an hour on like “I don’t understand this.” and “What are you trying to do here?” At the end of that, they said, “Great. So he has to meet some other people and we’ll call you tomorrow.” And I thought to myself “Omigod!” I walked away convinced I did not have that job. [laughs] Doesn’t it speak volumes about Rajiv Joseph that he found our conversation intriguing and exciting? He didn’t need somebody to tell him how great he was.

To my knowledge, there aren’t that many plays about basketball -

Yeah!

- so what would your elevator pitch be for King James to entice hardcore theater fans who might not normally be drawn to a play about basketball?

Taking King James into the Warriors’ backyard, you have to make sure this play is about so much more than basketball! While LeBron James looms large in this play and it is about the love of the sport, it’s really about the most unlikely friendship forming between these two young men and how it grows over the course of LeBron’s career in Cleveland. It’s about how sports is such a galvanizing, community-building thing, and specifically that moment in basketball history.

The thing that I think is so special about this is I don’t see many plays that feature healthy – even though it’s fraught, awkward and hilarious – friendships between men. It’s really lovely to see a play that is a celebration of brotherhood and friendship. I like sports - I don’t love sports - but boy do I love this play!

And then there’s the flip side of that equation. Do you have an elevator pitch for diehard basketball fans who maybe don’t attend live theater all that often?

For those folks, I would say if you love basketball this play will occupy a special place in your heart - even if you’re a Warriors fan. [laughs] I’m gonna say that because everybody on the staff is a huge Warriors fan so there’s been a very fun rivalry with Rajiv. With this play, you will know these guys and you will love all the intricate detail in it. I think this play will make a lot of people happy.

King James is essentially a two-hander so getting the casting right is especially critical to making the play come alive onstage. Had you ever worked with either of your actors before?

I had worked with Kenny Scott on A Distinct Society, and when I was working with him on that I was thinking, “Oh, he’d be terrific in King James.” And indeed, he is. Jordan Shappell, I did not know at all, but he came into the audition and was just so special. When you don’t know somebody, it’s always a risk, but we all thought “Well, this is definitely worth it.” Jordan is just a really great actor, and he and Kenny are so wonderful together. They’re both so open-hearted and fearless and funny, and I leave rehearsal every day so glad that we get to spend that time together.

How things are going with your “day job” as Artistic Director of TheatreWorks? You’ve now made it past your first anniversary in the position, which in the current, topsy-turvy world of regional theater was not at all a given.

Right?! [laughs] You know what? Things are going really well. We are still in the process, like every other theater (bless the ones that aren’t!), of rebuilding and reimagining our future. Last year when the community literally saved us, they bought us that year to reassess. Where most theaters have gone under is they haven’t had the chance to actually have a year of stability to go “OK, now I understand where we are. Now I see the repairs needed.”

So we’re in repair mode. We are also, which I’m so proud of, still joyfully creating art, still supporting artists and still making new theater, and we’re determined to keep doing that. I think we’re incredibly fortunate. Theater is a risky proposition in the best of times! I mean, it always has been because it doesn’t have the government funding. But right now it’s a wild and risky ride and there has to be something in your soul that kinda loves that. [laughs]

Whatever challenges TheatreWorks has been grappling with as an organization, that struggle doesn’t show up on the stage. You’ve been producing really topnotch theater that does not appear in any way to be compromised by conflict behind the scenes or bare-bones budgets.

That means so much for me to hear, and in a weird way that has been a tricky thing to tell people. Part of the beauty of being a 55-year old institution is that we have an extraordinary stock [of scenery, costumes, etc.], and we have true theater artisans who have been making art, and some of them together, for decades. So the art on that stage didn’t cost us that much (I mean, everything costs!), but it looks like a million dollars. It was hard sometimes to communicate to people that “No, we are in financial difficulty. We just know how to do this.” In a weird way, people wanted us to look like we were hurting, so that’s been a funny conundrum.

As one example of that, I thought the set for Tiger Style! last spring was really impressive – gorgeous and beguiling and so right for that play. I don’t know how expensive that set was, but it was perfect.

I love hearing that! Arnel Sancianco, the designer, is coming back and doing two shows for us this season because he has a brilliant mind that looked at the budget we had and made that. If we showed you the budget, you wouldn’t believe that he was able to craft that. So he’s back this year, working his magic again.

Before you were hired to lead TheatreWorks, you seemed to be on the cusp of becoming an artistic director somewhere, either at TheatreWorks or elsewhere, given the trajectory your career was on. Now that you’ve actually been in the job for over a year, is it what you expected?

[Bursts out laughing] Yes and no! This time in theater is so strange. I had the beauty of working at TheatreWorks during some wonderfully stable times so it took me about a year to learn that every day is a roller coaster. It’s not just this year, it’s not just a moment, it’s pretty much every day. I didn’t expect that and I’ve had to spend a year learning how to ride the roller coaster and find joy in that and understand that we’re in a super-fluid situation. You’ve gotta greet each day ready to face whatever it’s gonna bring you.

So – not what I expected, at all. [laughs]

TheatreWorks is far from alone in that when institutions like LA’s Mark Taper Forum and New York’s Playwrights Horizons have had to make massive cuts just to survive post-COVID.

Yeah, I think that’s what’s so scary about this time is giants are falling. TheatreWorks, I believe, is a cultural gem in the midst of Silicon Valley, and I still feel like I’m constantly introducing it to people. That they just don’t claim it, own it, know it is the work that I have ahead of me. Because they should. It should be a pride of the community, and that’s my job right now.

Looking back on your first year, tumultuous as it’s been, what has been the good part?

Do you know what’s been amazing? There were so many good parts. In that moment when you realize you may not make it, you have two choices and we as a company chose to be grateful and to love every minute, even the fight. So there has been so much that I love.

There was a moment where we needed a financial boost for this year and we learned that we were the beneficiary of somebody’s trust. They had passed away, which was devastating news, and then this gift which was literally a gift from the heavens showed up and it was so meaningful to realize the role that TheatreWorks had played in this person’s life. That was a day that kind of knocked my socks off, a heart-opening day.

Well, you only receive that kind of gift if you’ve made a significant impact on someone’s life and they understand the value you bring to the community.

That is exactly right. You know, we spend every day strategizing, dreaming and inventing. We’re in a really interesting place of creativity because we have to be, so I think it’s gonna be a really creative, juicy time, a very alive time for the company.

(Header and cast photos by Reed Flores / Sardelli & Joseph photo by Kevin Berne)

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King James will be presented October 9 – November 3, 2024 at Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro St, Mountain View. For more information, visit TheatreWorks.org or call 877-662-8978.

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