The Herald spoke with some of the principals from “Guitar Strings, a Cowboy and a Lost Peacock” about getting the play to curtain, how the production materialized so quickly, the process of collaboration and some of the difficulties experienced along the way.
Scott Levy
Director
On time limitations
If I were getting involved in a project from the beginning, I would say most plays follow a three-tier structure. The first is just reading the play, meaning the script is read out loud with the playwright and director and the collaborators in the room and hopefully with audience members who aren’t affiliated with any of the people, so that responses from the audience can be unbiased. And then the second phase would be a workshop production, which might involve the actors still with scripts in hand but with some degree of movement and staging, maybe a couple of props, a couple of scenic pieces, maybe a costume piece, to see how the play works and feels on its feet, and continually re-writing during that process and then getting to full production.
In productions I’ve done in the past, it took us two years to get from the first reading to opening night off-Broadway. In this particular process, I condensed that two years into four months.
On the play’s audience and scope
I think this play is meant for a very specific audience in a very specific place. We made the play to be performed in the Henry Strater Theatre in Durango. That, in effect, was very helpful because it actually limited what we could do. We were specifically gearing up to tell this story that starts and ends in the hotel itself, being in the space of the theater, I already knew what I could or couldn’t do technically inside the production. And we really knew that this would be appropriate for all ages and also that it was honoring and reflecting on Durango’s history. All those things made it easier, instead of being able to be 100 percent creative and letting it go with the flow. We knew where we had to get to.
On local audiences vs. tourists
When I came in to the first rehearsal, I’d never been to Durango before. I didn’t know anything about the town. I was able to listen to the play as a visitor to Durango and question, “What does this mean?” or “That doesn’t make sense,” or “Who is this character, based on Durango’s own history?” And then people like Rod and Sarah, who have been of the community for so long, were able to define some of the things, and I said, “That needs to be in the play,” not only for the visitors, but for that local audience.
We were really trying to focus on what in this play is going to work and connect to tourists and what is going to connect to locals. Like making a joke about Farmington, because apparently that’s what you do in Durango is make jokes about Farmington. So we knew we had to get a Farmington joke in there.
An audience is an audience, and my job is to tell a story and try to make that story connect emotionally to the audience, period. I mean, that’s it. But, this is not a play that would work off-Broadway because this is a play about Durango that for a lot of the play takes place in the same theater that the audience is watching it. So it’s a very specific piece for a specific place. Maybe it would work at another theater in Durango, but I don’t think it’s a play to travel around the country. It is very much a play about Durango, for Durango.
David Holub
Note: The interview has been condensed and edited for clarity
