S04E05: Nicholas O'Leary, Stage Director
Host and ensemble pianist Tae Kim sits down with Nicholas O’Leary, Stage Director of our 2017 production of Chrononhotonthologos by Andy Vores, to chat about the role of a stage director, the making of Chrononhotonthologos, as well as his interesting and varies interactive theater games and projects that are right on the horizon!
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Tae Kim: Hello Guerillas. This is episode five, season four of Guerilla Opera Podcast. My name is Tae Kim, ensemble pianist, and I’ll be your host for this episode. Today, Nick O’Leary joins us to talk about stage directing as we prepare for the upcoming watch party of Chrononhotonthologos, on January 14. Best again. Thank you for joining us today. So, can you tell us what a stage director might do?
Nicholas O’Leary: It’s a great question. In my mind it can mean a lot of different things, depending on what the work is and who the audience is. My work kind of straddles genres; I work a lot as a theater director, as well as working with music works, and operas, and what I call live performance, which can be a pretty broad spectrum of things. So it really depends on what the exact work is, what that role ends up being. To my mind, my job is to help create the most successful version of the event possible, which typically means both understanding and trying to hone what the performers need to succeed. They may need some inside advice or outside perspective. It tends to involve trying to understand what the generative artist is trying to do, whether that’s the playwright, or the composer, or even an ensemble base generative process I work with sometimes. Trying to help hone what that is doing, and work to the most successful articulation of that in three dimensions in time and space, as well as thinking about what the audience needs, and what will help them encounter the work most successfully, and have the most enjoyable, thought provoking, moving, whatever the goal is--the most successful version for them. That can be kind of a balancing act between those three different masters that we’re serving when we’re trying to put a work on its feet.
Tae Kim: So how did you get into it?
Nicholas O’Leary: So, truly, as long as I can remember, I was a theater kid. I think starting in first grade I was performing in community based musicals and educational theater. That was kind of my main hobby up through high school; I sang in a choir and things like that. At some point, I think when I was fourteen or fifteen, I came to understand that I was spending too much time thinking about what the other performers were doing, and not enough time focusing on what I was doing. I was really much more interested in solving the problems of how a performance came together. I was much more excited to go to rehearsal than I was to show up every night and perform the piece; because for me, what was really fun was kind of figuring out how to make it all work. So I started kind of thinking along this track that maybe I would be better served and better serve the -- I mean, I was having more fun when I was getting to make those decisions. Around that time, when I was fifteen or sixteen, I actually got the opportunity to start experimenting a little bit with scenic design. For my high school theater program it was possible for me as a student to be the person working with the director to design the set, which was a great opportunity for me at the time, and in doing that work I began to really engage the most with this idea of conceptualizing a piece as a whole, and finding that unity and coming up with some kind of organizing principle to make everything work, because I was having conversations for the first time that were about, you know, where is it set, what’s happening, what do we need to have onstage to make this happen. In doing that work I really came to the conclusion that my passion, my excitement, was for being in that directorial role, so I pursued that in my late teens through my undergrad studies, trying to find more and more opportunities to actually direct.
Tae Kim: So, Chrononhotonthologos was your first collaboration with the Guerilla Opera, how was that?
Nicholas O’Leary: Well, it was a blast, I will say that. I was so excited to get to work with Guerilla Opera, having enjoyed their work as an audience member. I think that for me, what was really special about that work in terms of the process was that the company is so ensemble driven, that really there is this sense of, we don’t have a conductor, we’re trying to create work together, we’re collaborating between the singers and the instrumentalists and the production designers to try to create the best version of this. It was really exciting for me to come in as the stage director, to be a point of contact for that process, but still not be the overseeing voice that was kind of the one person in charge in the room. The other thing that was really exciting was just the absolute spirit of audacious adventure that was clearly driving the company from day one. It’s so clear that no matter how absurd my sort of early proposals or silly noodles were, there was this desire to try it. A singer was willing to put themselves into an uncomfortable position, or try something kind of silly, or let me kind of say, well, I think this is where we start, and I think this is where we end up, do you have any ideas about what might happen in the middle? It was very refreshing to work with people who were excited to dive into those questions in a way that I haven’t encountered in every ensemble that I’ve gotten to work with.
Tae Kim: Let’s think about the space. I think that was the first space that we had to work with after the blackbox, because I think that was the year that we couldn’t actually perform in the blackbox like we used to do. So the space for the premier is actually for the orchestra rehearsals: big, spacious, yet not too much reverb. What kind of challenges did that provide?
Nicholas O’Leary: It was an interesting space to work in. I think from the perspective of the staging and the production design it presented an open canvas. On the one hand, there were lots of possibilities, but we were missing some of the control that traditionally is possible in a blackbox, both in terms of really precise lighting grid control, where you have a much lower ceiling and grid, and you have some of those abilities, as well as being able to fully pull the audience in and control the picture in a really precise way that is possible when you have more control over your environment. Instead, we were almost working with a pop-up experience, which ended up working really nicely with the production design concept that we came up with, that I sort of cooked up with Julia and in talking to Andy about what we were trying to do with the piece. We ended up approaching the show as if it were being put on by this company of tragedians that are referenced in the libretto. This idea that you could see backstage, you could understand that these people had brought all these things in trunks and bags and were sort of throwing something together for you, it almost felt a little bit like a travelling circus at times, did resonate really well with that kind of open, anything is possible in here, versus I think what you might expect working in a more traditional proscenium kind of space where there’s a lot of architecture that is establishing: this is a concert hall, or this is a performance venue.
Tae Kim: So with the performance space giving you that blank canvas, does directing a newly written work provide the same kind of freedom?
Nicholas O’Leary: Interesting question. I do a lot of new work; I love working on world premier productions and workshops and solving the problems of a new work. It can be really exciting to be there in that moment of discovering, and be the person who says I think that what we need in order to make this work is x, and being part of that early process. However, I also do a lot of classical work and a lot of what I think of as reimagining classics for a 21st century audience, and in some ways that kind of work is also very freeing, because when I am working as a new work director, I see part of my responsibility as serving the vision of the generative artist, whether that’s a composer, or a playwright, or even if it’s an ensemble driven work. I see my job as the interpreter who’s kind of shepherding that first ever articulation of this idea. I see it as my job to help make sure that whatever their idea is, whatever it is that they’re trying to put out into the world, I am helping them do that. So I don’t want to show up and say well Nick O’Leary’s idea is totally different and kind of shoot that down. Whereas when I’m working on a production of a classic, it’s much more comfortable to say, well, this has been done before, it’s been done many different ways, those works exist, audiences have seen those, audiences could see those, so now we get to say what do we want to say with this work, and we’re much more so in a position as the company of artists to say what’s going to work for us, what’s going to work for our audience. In some of my work, that has ended up verging on a kind of adaptation where we’re kind of reimagining a specific piece that is from a different context, and saying how are we going to change this, rewrite this, rework this to serve what we’re trying to say or serve the ears that our audience has today. It’s interesting that you bring it up, I mean, I think that Chrononhotonthologos is a really interesting example of that, in that Andy Vores is doing his reworking of this found text, and he is trying to say something that is very specific to him, but the libretto is so thoroughly based in this historical piece that it’s a really interesting example of that kind of process where I was much more in that director role and not the person who was kind of sorting out what we were trying to do with it.
Tae Kim: Any other fond memories from the premier?
Nicholas O’Leary: Well, I would say that almost every single minute was a joy. Even in those difficult final rehearsals, I really appreciated the team that we had. I remember a lot of discovery that happened in the room, which I think is really attributable to the spirit of adventure with these performers. I remember there was this one sequence where there’s this kind of chaotic running around craziness that’s happening that is reflecting what’s happening with the instruments, where there are these passages of cacophonous noise. We were playing around with the idea that the singers were going to run all over the stage, and spray each other with shaving cream, Brian Church had this inflatable hammer that he was hitting Brian Pollock with. The whole point was to kind of make a big huge mess, and then in that moment when the sonic world kind of clicks back into a more familiar place, we would snap into this sort of rigid picture. That idea was very fun, but it proved to be too chaotic. It was too chaotic to look chaotic, if that makes sense. We couldn’t actually achieve this level of craziness that we were trying to achieve, so I said, we’re going to try it again, we’re going to cut all the props, you’re just going to run around. One of the singers had been working with this rubber chicken prop, and said “Oh, are you really going to cut my rubber chicken?” and I said, alright, I’ll tell you what, we’re going to cut all the props except the rubber chicken. Honestly it was so much more fun to have these crazy moments where suddenly there was a rubber chicken appearing, and that was something that we could kind of track and understand, and then seeing that go away. That was a really fun discovery that came out of this singer having fun with this bit and wanting to keep working on it, and not at all from my frustration with this is too messy, let’s simplify.
Tae Kim: Wow, that’s amazing. So I hear you’re a creator of games and interactive experiences. Are we talking about something like escape rooms?
Nicholas O’Leary: It’s a great question. This is my other kind of passion, is for games of all kinds. As a hobby I love board games, I love escape rooms, anything that I get to play and interact with I’m very excited by. I’ve been very lucky to work with a number of different artists who exist on that full spectrum of game design, including working very closely with some really exciting game designers who are doing really important work. I have been part of everything from designing and developing some simple board games and video games to creating some kind of more hybrid works. I have an art practice where I work with a very dear collaborator of mine named Sharang Biswas, who is a game designer and a live action role play designer, where we make work that kind of straddles the line between games and performance. We created a piece called Knock Once For Yes, where an audience member is told they are going to learn how to be a medium and conduct a seance, and what happens in the performance is that this audience member is approached by a performer who is playing a client who is trying to reach a dearly departed loved one. The client explains who they’re trying to reach, and then another performer comes in who’s embodying this ghost of the loved one, but the ghost and the client can’t see or hear each other, so it’s left up to this audience member to mediate between the two people. They have to repeat back and forth what they say, and sometimes what the ghost has to say isn’t what the client wants to hear, so people are presented with this question of should I tell them what they want to hear and take care of them, or should I tell the truth and really acknowledge what this voice from the other side is saying. So that’s an example of something where we kind of tried to find what is the most audacious combination of an interactive experience and a performance experience.
Tae Kim: That’s very cool. Do you have any future projects coming up?
Nicholas O’Leary: My next project is actually a game design project that is one of these kind of points of intersection. I’m not 100% sure if it is announced yet, but I will confirm that before we release anything. I am a company member with Dacha Theater, which is a Seattle based organization that has been doing a lot of really exciting online work, since that’s the best way for them to reach their audience right now. I have been hired onto their next project as a game designer. The show is called Secret Admirer, and it is an exploration of ‘90s nostalgia, in which the characters play a board game that is targeted at adolescent girls, and they have to figure out who their secret admirer is. It’s going to be interactive with the audience; there’ll be some deduction elements, I think it’s going to be different every night. I have been hired onto that show as the game designer, so I’m creating this game that’s going to function as part of the performance.
Tae Kim: That’s so cool, how about a future performance with Guerilla Opera?
Nicholas O’Leary: I am optimistic that there will be one.
Tae Kim: Well, hopefully after the whole COVID thing.
Nicholas O’Leary: I had so much fun working with Guerilla Opera, and I’m really looking forward to the chance to work with them again. I’ve talked to Julia and Aliana about some of their future projects, and I’m hopeful that I could be part of anything that Guerilla is doing because, as an audience member and as an artist, I am just so inspired by what they do and would jump at any chance to be a part of the work.
Tae Kim: Well, thank you for joining us today, and see you at the watch party.
Nicholas O’Leary: That sounds great, I’m looking forward to it. Thanks, Tae.
Tae Kim: This concludes this episode of Guerilla Opera Podcast. We hope to see you at the watch party of Chrononhotonthologos on the fourteenth. And of course, if you enjoyed this podcast, please like and subscribe and support us on Patreon. Thank you for tuning in, until then.
Hailed as a "highly skilled improviser" by the New York Times and "prickly and explosive" by the Montreal Gazette, Tae Kim has gained widespread recognition as a classical pianist and improvisational artist. His innovative "Walk on the wild side" by Lou Reed concert at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and Salle d'Institut in Orléans, France, featured not only his classical improvisation on the very song by Lou Reed but traditional repertoire ranging from Robert Schumann to rarely heard Olivier Greif. His unique talent for classical improvisation earned him "Prix d'interprétation André Chevillion–Yvonne Bonnaud" for the premiere of his work, "Translate (2016)" at the 12e Concours international de piano d'Orléans, as well as "Prix–Mention Spéciale Edison Denisov". Part of the Piano at South Station, Tae regularly played on Thursdays in the middle of a train station amidst the confused if not pleased onlookers and travelers. He has soloed with many ensembles, including Cambridge Philharmonic, Yurodivy Chamber Orchestra, Hemenway Strings, and Boston Conservatory Orchestra. The Boston Globe praised his "sparkling performance" of Beethoven's Fifth Piano Concerto with the BCO as a "glimpse of radiant talent". Avid collaborator, Tae has partnered with "America's most wired composer" Tod Machover in such productions as Central Square Theatre's 2012 play "Remembering H.M.", part of the 2013 Edinburgh Festival's "Repertoire Remix" and as one of the presenters in "Reconstructing Beethoven's Improvisations" at MIT. (taekimpiano.com)
Nick O’Leary is a New York based director of theater and live events. Born and raised in New England, he has developed new work with The American Repertory Theater (MA), Guerilla Opera (MA), Actors Theatre of Louisville (KY), The Flea Theater (NY), The Museum of the Moving Image (NY), Exquisite Corpse Company (NY), The 24 Hour Plays (NY), Dacha Theatre (WA), Sinking Ship Creations (NY), as a guest artist at Dartmouth College (NH), and more. Nick is also a designer and creator of games and interactive experiences. His work with Tiltfactor Laboratory has focused on developing games and live interactive experiences designed to effect social change, combat gender bias, and facilitate the sourcing and organization of archival images for public institutions. (nickoleary.com)