An Interview with Robert Blake Whitehill Author of Tap Rack Bang
by Natasha Lee Martin November 17, 2014
Natasha: Tap Rack Bang is the third book in the Ben Blackshaw Series. Can you tell us a little bit about the series as a whole?
Robert: The Ben Blackshaw Series follows a man who is trying to battle his way back home to hearth and kin. In all his missions, he must make impossible decisions and take incalculable risks that would unravel the psyche of a man with less fortitude. A cast of bloodthirsty psychopaths comes at him from every vantage while dogged by enemies within.
A few ancillary themes that crop up in the Ben Blackshaw Series include assaults on the environment, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, co-conspiracies of government, international drug economy, child soldiers, and genocide. Not fluffy stuff, but I always try to weave a few fibers of these disturbing aspects of modern anti-culture into the larger tapestry of a fast-paced, entertaining story.
Ben Blackshaw is a former U.S. Navy SEAL hailing from Smith Island, in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay and a wildlife artist, working in sculpture and paint. He and his fellow Smith Islanders endure a very lean, almost hardscrabble existence. Financial ends do not always meet so sometimes the ends justify clandestine, even nefarious means. Just seventy miles from the halls of power in Washington, D.C., Blackshaw and his fellow islanders speak with a singsong accent and syntax preserved from the Elizabethan era. The people of Smith and Tangier emigrated from Cornwall, England, where one of their most vibrant industries was piracy.
The Ben Blackshaw Series begins with Deadrise, in which Blackshaw is diving the chilly Chesapeake Bay for oysters right after a late season hurricane. Through the murky, silted waters, he glimpses the very recent wreck of a speedboat mired on the bottom; it is laden with twenty very heavy cases, like aluminum footlockers. To Blackshaw’s astonishment, nineteen of them are packed with gold bullion. At the speedboat’s helm is the body of a man he has not seen in fifteen years: his father. Blackshaw contends with rogue government operatives hell-bent on recovering the sunken boat’s cargo without regard for the cost in blood. Should he fail to defend the cargo and his home, it could mean the start of World War III.
Nitro Express involves a worldwide cat-and-mouse hunt in which he has been asked to track and eliminate a serial sniper. Blackshaw accepts the mission only to realize under fire that his name has been added to the killer’s list on orders from the highest offices of the U.S. government. When Blackshaw discovers the identity of his deadly quarry he gains a shocking new understanding of his own dark family history.
With Tap Rack Bang, Blackshaw is swept into the bloody rescue of a young girl trafficked into the United States. He finds himself once again at odds and facing the loss of the one person he holds most dear. That grave prospect guts him, and in his vulnerable state of mind, the results might prove fatal.
Natasha: How many books will there be in the series?
Robert: Thanks to the Freedom of Information Act, three Ben Blackshaw missions are currently declassified and available to the public: Deadrise, Nitro Express, and Tap Rack Bang. Geronimo Hotshot is in the works. I’ve committed to writing ten Blackshaw thrillers, but it is very likely there will be more.
Natasha: What makes Tap Rack Bang different from the first two books in the series?
Robert: Tap Rack Bang deepens the reader’s understanding of the inner demons Blackshaw wrestles with, while pitting him against the wickedest, most brutal, disgusting array of human monsters. Human traffickers take the Ben Blackshaw Series into a darker realm than the first two missions.
Natasha: What inspired you to write this book?
Robert: I am often forlorn to my depths when I consider man’s inhumanity to man; this includes human trafficking, particularly of children. Though Tap Rack Bang is fiction, its central theme of depravity echoes a real tragedy of our culture. It is happening here in the USA.
Natasha: What was your biggest challenge in writing Tap Rack Bang?
Robert: I have worked as an Emergency Medical Technician on the ambulances of Montclair, New Jersey. Responding to 911 pediatric calls to find children who have been abused so I had to work very hard to step back from my own visceral responses to these tragedies in order to craft a story that was neither mawkish nor melodramatic because I was still too close to the horrors I encountered. It is possible that writing Tap Rack Bang is another phase in my own reckoning with the results of the savagery I have witnessed.
Natasha: This book touches on themes including the human trafficking of children. How did being a father affect how you broached this topic?
Robert: Not long after my son Beau was born, I began seeing him in light of some horrible 911 pediatric calls. I could not compartmentalize well enough to do my job. I could not look at these abused kids without thinking “There, but for the grace of God, goes Beau.”
It was my hope that somebody reading this story might be moved to take action. Maybe they would donate time and money to organizations like The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, or even take an extra moment to really look at a missing child poster, or to be a bit more vigilant during an AMBER Alert.
Natasha: Your books are set in the Chesapeake Bay area. Why did you choose this setting?
Robert: I was born on Maryland’s Eastern Shore Peninsula, which forms the east land boundary of the Chesapeake Bay. It is a very special place to me, and I wanted to share it with others. Within this unique region, the people of Smith Island struck me as particularly fascinating, with their anachronistic accents, quirks of speech and syntax, as well as their grim, determined individualism in the face of many grinding hardships.
Natasha: What research went into writing this book?
Robert: I am no soldier so to credibly write about arms and military tactics, I rely upon my cousin, Walter Whitehill, a decorated Viet Nam veteran, and Adam Gubar, an arms expert, for advice. Documentary filmmakers who have dealt with the subject also gave me important new perspectives. I also spent time at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum (http://www.cbmm.org) Of course there is no substitute for visiting Smith Island by boat, or flying myself to the airstrip on Tangier Island.
Natasha: You come from a family of writers. Did you always know you wanted to write?
Robert: My mother, an elegant editor and poet, and my father, who was an award-winning short story writer and novelist, showed me the daily life of a writer, the disciplines. After studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, and at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theater in New York City. I discovered a feel for structure (with Robert McKee’s guidance), and a joy in crafting decent dialogue. As a writer, if I can’t say it myself with deadly conviction, I won’t make a reader endure it, or a true actor struggle with it.
Natasha: What advice do you have for aspiring writers?
Robert: For younger writers, I would suggest to find exciting, inspiring writing teachers, to read voraciously from the best of every century, and then to write anything and everything. For a person coming to writing later in life, I would suggest that accomplishment comes after the first ten thousand pages. Also, a tough editor should be viewed as an integral part of the writing team. Engage in the services of an excellent public relations firm like Shelton Interactive (http://sheltoninteractive.com) to help your work find its rightful audience.
Natasha: Do you have any specific advice for people looking to write a series?
Robert: A series, particularly in a popular genre (mystery, thriller, suspense, romance, science fiction, young adult, or fantasy, for example) has a better chance at garnering sales, because you can build an audience over time.
A series affords a writer at least one character, likely more, whom readers can get to know more deeply beyond the covers of a single book. I have received flaming hate mail from folks to whom I have shown early drafts, particularly if I have dared to jeopardize a beloved character. Listen closely to that feedback. It relates directly to later sales.
Natasha: The Ben Blackshaw Series was optioned to be made into major motion pictures. Tell us more about that.
Robert: As an award-winning screenwriter, I always hoped that the Ben Blackshaw Series might be considered for adaptation into feature films I began reaching out to every film industry professional I knew. I reconnected with a classmate of Haverford College named Stephanie Bell, now a producing partner at HatLine Productions www.hatlineproductions.com. She did not hesitate to agree to read the first two thrillers in the Ben Blackshaw Series, Deadrise, and Nitro Express. She was immediately hooked. Then I sent her the third book, Tap Rack Bang, in manuscript form. One of the terms of my agreement with HatLine includes that I will adapt the novels into screenplays myself.
Natasha: What advice do you have for someone who wants his or her book to be made into a move?
Robert: Once the book is proven to resonate loud, hard, and strongly with readers, it is possible that Hollywood might call an agent can help with this strange form of business-to-business marketing. As Joanne Zippel, www.zipcreative.net asserts, writers can mine interested readers with film making connections from among their own contacts.. Include actors and directors in your list of potential champions to whom you might introduce your work. You never know which beloved character actor has standing deal with mini or major studios, distributors and financiers who are eagerly waiting to be introduced to a vehicle that inspires fresh excitement in a genre. Do good work. Market it hard. Manage your expectations. Keep writing.
Natasha: What’s next in the series?
Robert: The next novel in The Ben Blackshaw Series, entitled Geronimo Hotshot, takes Blackshaw to the American Southwest. I love that area, and it injects Blackshaw into unfamiliar territory. The first chapter of Geronimo Hotshot is available at the end of Tap Rack Bang.
Natasha: Where can we learn more?
Robert: Readers can learn more about Smith Island, the Chesapeake Bay region, the Ben Blackshaw Series, and about me at www.robertblakewhitehill.com. Twitter via @rbwhitehill.
Facebook to learn about book signings and readings. https://www.facebook.com/RobertBlakeWhitehill
Robert welcomes emails from readers as well at rbw@robertblakewhitehill.com.
by Natasha Lee Martin November 17, 2014
Natasha: Tap Rack Bang is the third book in the Ben Blackshaw Series. Can you tell us a little bit about the series as a whole?
Robert: The Ben Blackshaw Series follows a man who is trying to battle his way back home to hearth and kin. In all his missions, he must make impossible decisions and take incalculable risks that would unravel the psyche of a man with less fortitude. A cast of bloodthirsty psychopaths comes at him from every vantage while dogged by enemies within.
A few ancillary themes that crop up in the Ben Blackshaw Series include assaults on the environment, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, co-conspiracies of government, international drug economy, child soldiers, and genocide. Not fluffy stuff, but I always try to weave a few fibers of these disturbing aspects of modern anti-culture into the larger tapestry of a fast-paced, entertaining story.
Ben Blackshaw is a former U.S. Navy SEAL hailing from Smith Island, in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay and a wildlife artist, working in sculpture and paint. He and his fellow Smith Islanders endure a very lean, almost hardscrabble existence. Financial ends do not always meet so sometimes the ends justify clandestine, even nefarious means. Just seventy miles from the halls of power in Washington, D.C., Blackshaw and his fellow islanders speak with a singsong accent and syntax preserved from the Elizabethan era. The people of Smith and Tangier emigrated from Cornwall, England, where one of their most vibrant industries was piracy.
The Ben Blackshaw Series begins with Deadrise, in which Blackshaw is diving the chilly Chesapeake Bay for oysters right after a late season hurricane. Through the murky, silted waters, he glimpses the very recent wreck of a speedboat mired on the bottom; it is laden with twenty very heavy cases, like aluminum footlockers. To Blackshaw’s astonishment, nineteen of them are packed with gold bullion. At the speedboat’s helm is the body of a man he has not seen in fifteen years: his father. Blackshaw contends with rogue government operatives hell-bent on recovering the sunken boat’s cargo without regard for the cost in blood. Should he fail to defend the cargo and his home, it could mean the start of World War III.
Nitro Express involves a worldwide cat-and-mouse hunt in which he has been asked to track and eliminate a serial sniper. Blackshaw accepts the mission only to realize under fire that his name has been added to the killer’s list on orders from the highest offices of the U.S. government. When Blackshaw discovers the identity of his deadly quarry he gains a shocking new understanding of his own dark family history.
With Tap Rack Bang, Blackshaw is swept into the bloody rescue of a young girl trafficked into the United States. He finds himself once again at odds and facing the loss of the one person he holds most dear. That grave prospect guts him, and in his vulnerable state of mind, the results might prove fatal.
Natasha: How many books will there be in the series?
Robert: Thanks to the Freedom of Information Act, three Ben Blackshaw missions are currently declassified and available to the public: Deadrise, Nitro Express, and Tap Rack Bang. Geronimo Hotshot is in the works. I’ve committed to writing ten Blackshaw thrillers, but it is very likely there will be more.
Natasha: What makes Tap Rack Bang different from the first two books in the series?
Robert: Tap Rack Bang deepens the reader’s understanding of the inner demons Blackshaw wrestles with, while pitting him against the wickedest, most brutal, disgusting array of human monsters. Human traffickers take the Ben Blackshaw Series into a darker realm than the first two missions.
Natasha: What inspired you to write this book?
Robert: I am often forlorn to my depths when I consider man’s inhumanity to man; this includes human trafficking, particularly of children. Though Tap Rack Bang is fiction, its central theme of depravity echoes a real tragedy of our culture. It is happening here in the USA.
Natasha: What was your biggest challenge in writing Tap Rack Bang?
Robert: I have worked as an Emergency Medical Technician on the ambulances of Montclair, New Jersey. Responding to 911 pediatric calls to find children who have been abused so I had to work very hard to step back from my own visceral responses to these tragedies in order to craft a story that was neither mawkish nor melodramatic because I was still too close to the horrors I encountered. It is possible that writing Tap Rack Bang is another phase in my own reckoning with the results of the savagery I have witnessed.
Natasha: This book touches on themes including the human trafficking of children. How did being a father affect how you broached this topic?
Robert: Not long after my son Beau was born, I began seeing him in light of some horrible 911 pediatric calls. I could not compartmentalize well enough to do my job. I could not look at these abused kids without thinking “There, but for the grace of God, goes Beau.”
It was my hope that somebody reading this story might be moved to take action. Maybe they would donate time and money to organizations like The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, or even take an extra moment to really look at a missing child poster, or to be a bit more vigilant during an AMBER Alert.
Natasha: Your books are set in the Chesapeake Bay area. Why did you choose this setting?
Robert: I was born on Maryland’s Eastern Shore Peninsula, which forms the east land boundary of the Chesapeake Bay. It is a very special place to me, and I wanted to share it with others. Within this unique region, the people of Smith Island struck me as particularly fascinating, with their anachronistic accents, quirks of speech and syntax, as well as their grim, determined individualism in the face of many grinding hardships.
Natasha: What research went into writing this book?
Robert: I am no soldier so to credibly write about arms and military tactics, I rely upon my cousin, Walter Whitehill, a decorated Viet Nam veteran, and Adam Gubar, an arms expert, for advice. Documentary filmmakers who have dealt with the subject also gave me important new perspectives. I also spent time at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum (http://www.cbmm.org) Of course there is no substitute for visiting Smith Island by boat, or flying myself to the airstrip on Tangier Island.
Natasha: You come from a family of writers. Did you always know you wanted to write?
Robert: My mother, an elegant editor and poet, and my father, who was an award-winning short story writer and novelist, showed me the daily life of a writer, the disciplines. After studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, and at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theater in New York City. I discovered a feel for structure (with Robert McKee’s guidance), and a joy in crafting decent dialogue. As a writer, if I can’t say it myself with deadly conviction, I won’t make a reader endure it, or a true actor struggle with it.
Natasha: What advice do you have for aspiring writers?
Robert: For younger writers, I would suggest to find exciting, inspiring writing teachers, to read voraciously from the best of every century, and then to write anything and everything. For a person coming to writing later in life, I would suggest that accomplishment comes after the first ten thousand pages. Also, a tough editor should be viewed as an integral part of the writing team. Engage in the services of an excellent public relations firm like Shelton Interactive (http://sheltoninteractive.com) to help your work find its rightful audience.
Natasha: Do you have any specific advice for people looking to write a series?
Robert: A series, particularly in a popular genre (mystery, thriller, suspense, romance, science fiction, young adult, or fantasy, for example) has a better chance at garnering sales, because you can build an audience over time.
A series affords a writer at least one character, likely more, whom readers can get to know more deeply beyond the covers of a single book. I have received flaming hate mail from folks to whom I have shown early drafts, particularly if I have dared to jeopardize a beloved character. Listen closely to that feedback. It relates directly to later sales.
Natasha: The Ben Blackshaw Series was optioned to be made into major motion pictures. Tell us more about that.
Robert: As an award-winning screenwriter, I always hoped that the Ben Blackshaw Series might be considered for adaptation into feature films I began reaching out to every film industry professional I knew. I reconnected with a classmate of Haverford College named Stephanie Bell, now a producing partner at HatLine Productions www.hatlineproductions.com. She did not hesitate to agree to read the first two thrillers in the Ben Blackshaw Series, Deadrise, and Nitro Express. She was immediately hooked. Then I sent her the third book, Tap Rack Bang, in manuscript form. One of the terms of my agreement with HatLine includes that I will adapt the novels into screenplays myself.
Natasha: What advice do you have for someone who wants his or her book to be made into a move?
Robert: Once the book is proven to resonate loud, hard, and strongly with readers, it is possible that Hollywood might call an agent can help with this strange form of business-to-business marketing. As Joanne Zippel, www.zipcreative.net asserts, writers can mine interested readers with film making connections from among their own contacts.. Include actors and directors in your list of potential champions to whom you might introduce your work. You never know which beloved character actor has standing deal with mini or major studios, distributors and financiers who are eagerly waiting to be introduced to a vehicle that inspires fresh excitement in a genre. Do good work. Market it hard. Manage your expectations. Keep writing.
Natasha: What’s next in the series?
Robert: The next novel in The Ben Blackshaw Series, entitled Geronimo Hotshot, takes Blackshaw to the American Southwest. I love that area, and it injects Blackshaw into unfamiliar territory. The first chapter of Geronimo Hotshot is available at the end of Tap Rack Bang.
Natasha: Where can we learn more?
Robert: Readers can learn more about Smith Island, the Chesapeake Bay region, the Ben Blackshaw Series, and about me at www.robertblakewhitehill.com. Twitter via @rbwhitehill.
Facebook to learn about book signings and readings. https://www.facebook.com/RobertBlakeWhitehill
Robert welcomes emails from readers as well at rbw@robertblakewhitehill.com.
Finding the Y; Ideation on Directing in "A Murder of Crows" in Real Time Theater
An Interview with Playwright Mac Wellman on Directing his play "A Murder of Crows" by Natasha Lee Martin
June 19, 2013
http://www.howlround.com/finding-the-y-ideation-on-directing-in-a-murder-of-crows-in-real-time-theater
What is the director’s role in reimagining a playwright’s work? In conceptualizing and directing Mac Wellman’s A Murder of Crows, I encouraged the design to contribute greatly to the development of the piece. The conceptual design became an integral part of the lead character, ultimately usurping a traditional western theater perception of actor and director as sole co-creators of the play. The approach allows conventional reality to be stretched into contemporary nonrealism. I reached out to the playwright, Mac Wellman, in a series of interviews to get his take on re-envisioning and modernizing his play A Murder of Crows through the use of interactive design technology.
Mac: So, you're directing A Murder of Crows?
Natasha: Yes, I saw it when you came to the University of New Mexico and I was an undergrad studying theater then... jeez we are going back now…I think it was, 1996 maybe?
Mac: It was a long time ago I know that!
Mac: So, what kind of questions do you have?
Natasha: In directing the cast of A Murder of Crows, during rehearsals, I am incorporating this idea that the main character (Susannah) is distancing herself from the family because she is immersing herself into technology more. So, we are approaching the piece with a more modern take in terms of the design. For instance, she might be playing a video game, which has the main player from the aerial perspective of a crow. The artistic direction is quite impressive, and some of these clips have several scenes with crows interacting with the environment. She will be involving herself into another version of herself such as a Second Life or an avatar of herself. Her alone time (formerly only by the pond as you wrote into the stage direction of the original piece) is now consumed by her imagination through a collage of interactive technology. She's just embedding herself more into the media to get away from her family.
Mac: You could do that.
Natasha: I really respect your work and was fortunate enough to see an original presentation, so I just wanted to get your thoughts on it before we proceed further into this directorial concept.
Mac: I think it’s fine as long as it doesn't take over the show, because then the whole show will turn into a video game, and I don't think that's quite right. But if you want to play with that stuff I don't see why not.
Natasha: Well that's great! I am so glad to hear that!
Mac: Actually the next two plays in the series (Hyacinth Macaw and Second Hand Smoke), which no one has gotten this, but that is her life with the crows, except they are just boring people like everybody else.
Natasha: Another thing I am considering is revealing the character of her brother Andy as shown somewhat through Skype conversations, rather than onstage as a frozen statue. The Skype videos will be projected onto a large screen over the audience. In some of the conversations there would be no audio, so the audience will be unable to hear what he is saying all the time, as if he is Skyping from the frontlines in Iraq. So at some points we would not hear him speak, but rather just see a visual of him talking on the screen in fatigues, as a possible memory, rather than an actual real time event onstage.
Mac: Well, the only thing about that is I think that I would like that people should be able to hear what he is saying.
Natasha: Yes! All of his monologues would be delivered by the actor live as the “statue” of Andy, so the audience would hear the entirety of those parts, however Susannah at times would be watching clips and snippets of his Skype conversations so only she can “hear” him. She is trying to preserve his memory by watching, so these are things that might be happening onstage, but it is a silent moment.
Mac: Yes, I have no problem with that.
Natasha: I think we are going for more of a graphic novel look, an urban gritty Gotham city look to it, there is fracking, there is smog. This replaces the fictional sludge in the play, so that whole environment is taking over.
Mac: That makes a lot of sense.
Natasha: Good! I'm glad that conceptually I am going in the right direction to support the dialogue and the text because that is really essential to me as a director.
Mac: It should feel contemporary, and if you want to try those sorts of techniques, I don't have any problem with that at all.
Natasha: You know, Mac, I am trying to have a very ecological approach as a director in the sense that I feel all of the elements are equally important, and influence each other, but the language and the story really need to be supported and communicated, so I try to be very sensitive to the danger of the design and technology overpowering the actors and the story. These elements are montages and the actors, your language, truly and purely still drive the piece with the dialogue and the relationships and dynamics you have crafted. So, I have the question of whether she is in this limbo or quandary trying to still maintain that connection emotionally and spiritually with her family, and yet exploring that sense of alienation and isolation that people her age right now are feeling, with the distractions of all our “devices.”
Mac: That is exactly what it is about. Technology is of the age and there is no reason you shouldn't use it. It’s just a question of making it work in the theater, which can be tricky sometimes. As you know, too much technology, particularly video, can be too much to make work in the theater, but it sounds like you are doing it well (or plan on doing it well) but I would love to see it, so please do send me pictures and video of it!
Part II Jan 29, 2013, Post-show
Natasha: Did you have any preconceived notions about the practice or approach to the way you thought the piece would be directed? Did you envision anything in particular in terms of performance techniques?
Wellman: Well, the funny thing about the play is that it was rather difficult to write, because I kept finding myself stuck, scenes kept stopping in the middle. At first I didn’t like that and I wanted to fix them to not stop in the middle. But actually the whole play stops in the middle, so it’s a funny thing, but then I realized that was how it had to be written. So, you end up frequently with scenes that are odd or end oddly because you have a bunch of characters onstage and they don’t really know what to do anymore. They’re stuck there. And that uncomfortableness is actually part of the play. And then I realized that I had to deal with the fact that the play was the beginning of a series of plays. And that was interesting. So I wrote the three other plays. [Note from editor: Crowtet 1consists of A Murder of Crows and Hyacinth Macaw and Crowtet 2 consists ofSecond Hand Smoke and The Lesser Magoo.]
Natasha: I was thinking about myths and superstitions, and wondered if you had studied any myths or superstitions that had influenced the story as it came about.
Wellman: It’s based on the Book of Susanna in the Bible. Wallace Stephens has a lovely poem based on the Bible story called “Peter Quince at the Clavier.” The Elders were peeking as Susanna was bathing. It’s a sort of classic story of the corruption of the old. I thought about it for a long time before I…well, actually, I didn’t think about it that long. (Laughter on both ends) I just wrote it...but that’s where it comes from.
Natasha: How do you think the relationship changed in your expectation of the audience reaction as opposed to later when you got to a point where productions got done more often, on a larger or different production level? Do you think your expectation of the audience’s interpretation changed?
Wellman: I don’t really think so. MOC was done at a couple of smaller theaters before it was done in New York City at Primary Stages. So, I actually got a chance to see it got done at little theaters in San Francisco and Dallas. Those were useful. Then in New York, we had a really great cast, so it was a lot of fun. And like I say, it did well, and then I began to work on the other plays in that series. Actually the publisher, Douglas Messerli, has an ongoing theater blog where he’s been writing about MOC.
Natasha: You asked in your email about the audience reaction here in the Midwest, particularly here at a private, liberal arts college. To tell you the truth, I wasn’t sure how the piece would be received and really took a risk by proposing to direct it. I figured I would reiterate some comments that we had heard every night in talking with the audience after the show and the weeks following. The students, faculty, and audience members would approach us in the lobby after the show and say, “OK, can you tell us now what happened to Susanna at the end?” and some of us would reply “Well, what do you think happened to Susanna?” and so we never really gave them any answers...because they would’ve just been our own interpretations and we left that very open at the end for our audience.
Wellman: Well, that’s good!
Natasha: Some other feedback we received was that the student actors rehearsing the piece felt they intrinsically started to connect regardless of whether they always understood what the inner dialogue of the character was.
Wellman: Right!
Natasha: So, I used a much more improvisational, storytelling, and physical kind of dynamic in the rehearsals. I incorporated Paul Binnerts’ Real Time Theater methods and exercises, which seemed to work beautifully in complimenting your language and those physical moments. The feedback we got from the students in the show and the feedback the students received in the department was really surprising! Because we expected a bit of confusion from people who wouldn’t react well to the play because of the content, but they surprised us at every turn. People expressed that they were really moved and they had moments of relatability and connectivity to your work. That was something I really wanted to have a chance to tell you!
Wellman: Well, that’s good! It was, of course written during the first Iraq war, as a comment on that war, which didn’t last very long, but it was ominous beginning to something.
Natasha: After talking with you it’s just been so thrilling and inspiring. I so appreciate that you have allowed me to pick your brain! It’s so exciting and I am just so grateful, so thank you.
Wellman: Well, I take my teaching very seriously, so it’s important to do those things.
