I Interview Directors Part I: Glynis Rigsby

Glynis Rigsby

Hometown: Torrance, CA

Current Town: Brooklyn, NY

Tell me about Spreading Canvas:

A dear friend of mine, Eleanor Hughes, called me up one day in the mid-90’s to tell me that she was at the Huntington Library reading plays from the Larpent Collection, an archive of almost every play submitted to the London censor between 1737 and 1824.  She was researching material for her Phd dissertation on 18^th century British Marine Painting and had discovered a trove of plays with excerpts dramatizing naval battles. She is now the Associate Director of the Walters Museum in Baltimore and last week, she opened an exhibition at the Yale Center of British Art called “Spreading Canvas” based on that research.  I just received the catalog for it and it’s gorgeous.  As part of the opening of the exhibition, she asked Yale to bring me in to direct some of the naval excerpts so we headed up to New Haven to stage marine battles with teapots and clay pipes for the exhibition’s opening.

What else are you currently busy with?

I’m the Chair of an Acting for Film program in addition to teaching directing at the New School for Drama. Last weekend I did a workshop for NYSTEA on visual storytelling to introduce theater instructors to the world of film.  My daughter also discovered gymnastics at Chelsea Piers this summer, so I do a lot of informal judging of one-handed cartwheels.

Tell me, if you will, a story from your childhood that explains who you are as a Director and/or as a person.

When I was nine, my parents took my younger brother and I on a 3-week trip to Canada on the back of two motorcycles and I read novels the entire way as long as it wasn’t raining. I burned through books like they were potato chips.  I would hide under the covers with a flashlight and I still have a tough time putting a book down to go to bed. My husband reads more slowly and retains more than I do but I love stories. I used to act out new endings if I wanted the characters to go in a different direction. I could feel the heartbeat of the story in my body as I read it.  So I’ve grown up reliving dramatic events late at night in the dark.

If you could change one thing about theater, what would it be?

Standardize a living wage for theater artists. Previous to 2001, actors in New York could live a middle class existence but the financial landscape has profoundly changed. Andrew Griffin wrote an article for DC Theatre Scene in 2014 that laid out the huge challenges facing freelance theatre artists in his area. It closely paralleled my experience in both San Francisco and New York.

Who are or were your theatrical Heroes?

Peter Brook for his clarity. Tadashi Suzuki for staging his dreams. Pina Bausch for staging mine. Lately, Joan Littlewood for being a pain in the ass when necessary.  Philosophically, I’m closest to Brook. I gravitate most strongly to the relationship between actor and audience.  My arc reverses his. I started with the actor and the audience and only later came to understand the role of design. But I think I always envision his empty space first when I start work on a show.

What kind of theater excites you?

Work that challenges my preconceptions and surprises me. Small Mouth Sounds by Bess Wohl or Caught by Christopher Chen did that just recently.

What advice do you have for Directors just starting out?

Learn to turn failure into an asset. Find good teachers to train you in the specifics of stagecraft and good collaborators to challenge and inspire you. Study theatrical history. All of it. Come into the room with the notion that everything has the potential to be interesting but some things are more interesting than others. Pursue those.

Plugs, please:

Nothing I can talk about right now. Stay tuned.