Entering into The Pastures of Heaven

So folks, we just ended a full week of workshopping the first complete draft of Octavio Solis’ adaptation of Steinbeck’s The Pastures of Heaven. We’re premiering it next year on our Main Stage, and it was quite a week.

Octavio’s play is, simply, beautiful. On the path to making a play, you look for its DNA: what it’s made of. Changes will be made—cuts, rearrangements of scenes, additions, etc.—but what needs to be there at one point is the play’s DNA. Its self. Octavio’s Pastures has real DNA. It has a genuine theatrical life, blending Word for Word’s sensibility of translating literature into theater with my love of the nakedness of storytelling in the hands of actors (as we explored in Nicholas Nickleby). But more importantly, it has heart. And poetry. It’s also very very funny. And that’s all Octavio. He pulls Steinbeck’s quiet words off the page and finds the juxtapositions between humor and pathos in a way that makes me happy to feel like I am in the hands of a Chekhovian writer.

We assembled a group of actors, some of whom had been with the process since it started two years ago, and some new actors. And all were splendid collaborators, able to make characters distinct and alive in an extremely short time; also able to ask smart questions of the text that will inevitably inform our next steps in the development of the piece; and most of all, united, in just six days, into an ensemble. Which is what this play celebrates: the storytelling of an ensemble of actors. It’s sheer theater—authentic and alive.

We invited some funders, board members, staff, and patrons to the “window on the work” yesterday, reading abou half of the play. The feeling in the room was palpable—there was something special going on here. I was, to be quite sentimental, extremely proud, moved, and almost speechless (and for those of you who know me, that is no small feat) by the presence of a wonderful new American play, inspired by one of our great American writers—a classic writer if you will—at a Theater that is taking a big leap forward in defining who it is.

The great folks at Arena Stage sent someone out to chronicle the process. They, along with the NEA, were partners in selecting John Steinbeck's The Pastures of Heaven as one of five NEA Distinguished New American Plays. This, along with support from the Irvine Foundation and other amazing foundations, is making it possible for us to do this piece. And our subscribers delight in the surprises we make for them. So their spirit was in the room as we made steps in the creation of this piece. And our staff, led by the great Jessica Richards, producer of the project, was there every step of the way.

Hence the pride, the being moved, and the almost-speechlessness. I couldn’t do this anywhere else but at Cal Shakes, and in the Bay Area, which is by far the best place in this country to take chances in theatrical expression.

There’s a lot of work still be done with the play, but Octavio knows where to go with it and what to do. Trust the playwright. Especially when it’s Octavio Solis, who listens more than he talks, takes in and thinks hard about what the actors and I are doing, and is open to the collaboration of the ensemble and myself.

I am genuinely happy about what happened last week, which is just a marker in the path of the making of this new American play. And our community engagement—with folks in Salinas, especially the young artists of Alisal Center for the Arts (whose mural inspired by The Pastures of Heaven will be on display at our Theater during the play’s run) as well as students in the Bay Area who are learning about Steinbeck and how to make literature come alive (via our excellent teaching artists)—makes this more than just a play-making process. It’s a community-building process. It makes it all bigger. It makes more impact. And it will forever change this Theater and, I hope, some of the communities we are reaching out to.

More anon.

Jonathan

Pictured above, from top: Jonathan speaks to project artists at the last Pastures workshop; Danny Scheie; Maya Lawson; Craig Marker; photos by Jay Yamada. View more at the New Works/New Communities Flickr page.

Steinbeck Blog Prompt #3 by Jonathan Moscone

The third and last in our series of three prompts, designed to help inform our upcoming Steinbeck Project workshop. The Cal Shakes New Works/New Communities program would love for you to leave your input in the "comments" section below, via prose, poetry, links to video, imagery, or audio, and whatever else you can think of. Posting your comments on an individual prompt blog during its first week gets you entered in a drawing to win a prize*, and all comments are eligible for publication in Cal Shakes newsletters, on our website, and/or in the program for John Steinbeck's The Pastures of Heaven during our 2010 season.**

This week's prompt comes from Cal Shakes Artistic Director Jonathan Moscone, who will be directing the Main Stage production of Pastures.

In Steinbeck's book of short stories, The Pastures of Heaven, lives are eternally changed by the smallest action, the merest word, the slightest touch. Life is not melodramatic, he seems to be saying. There are no good guys and bad guys; any of us can say something or do something that seems small and insignificant, and yet has the most epic, seismic effect on the life of someone else. Has this happened to you? What are those little moments that have had the biggest effect on your life? Or can you think of a small thing that you have done or said that inadvertently affected another person's life in a surprisingly large way?

Photo of Jonathan Moscone by Jay Yamada.

Steinbeck Blog Prompt #2: Identity and Community

This is the second in our series of three prompts, designed to help inform our upcoming Steinbeck Project workshop. The Cal Shakes New Works/New Communities program would love for you to leave your input in the "comments" section below, via prose, poetry, links to video or audio, and whatever else you can think of. Posting your comments on an individual prompt blog during its first week gets you entered in a drawing to win a prize*, and all comments are eligible for publication in Cal Shakes newsletters, on our website, and/or in the program for John Steinbeck's The Pastures of Heaven during our 2010 season.**

And so now, without further ado, here's your second prompt, written by Trish Tillman, Cal Shakes’ Director of Artistic Learning and one of the developers of this fall’s Pastures of Heaven residency at Oakland’s Reems Academy.


As we develop our residency work in schools, one of the most important things that our students are trying to understand is the idea of identity in their own lives, and how one’s personality is shaped in relationship with others. If you can think back to middle or high school—or if you are that age now—you know how important social interactions can be to how you are perceived, and how you think about yourself.

One of the main themes of Steinbeck’s work is how complicated social interactions can be between disparate groups of people living in the same place. Much like a neighborhood or a school, his characters come together with certain expectations or desires about how they will live in the community in which they find themselves. When you enter a new group for the first time, what do you expect? How do you begin to understand those around you?


*Prize still to be determined. Please leave your email address somewhere in your comment!!
**Don't worry, we'll ask your permission first.
Art courtesy of an anonymous commenter on last week's blog.

Steinbeck Project Blog Prompt #1, by Octavio Solis

Here it is, the first in our series of three prompts, designed to help inform our upcoming Steinbeck Project workshop. The Cal Shakes New Works/New Communities program would love for you to leave your input in the "comments" section below, via prose, poetry, links to video or audio, and whatever else you can think of. Posting your comments on an individual prompt blog during its first week gets you entered in a drawing to win a prize*, and all comments are eligible for publication in Cal Shakes newsletters, on our website, and/or in the program for John Steinbeck's The Pastures of Heaven during our 2010 season.**

And so now, without further ado, here's your first prompt, written by none other than Octavio Solis, the award-winning playwright of John Steinbeck's The Pastures of Heaven.


In The Pastures of Heaven, as in most of his other novels dealing with Salinas, Steinbeck depicts the hard lives of the rural working class. There are migrant workers, chicken farmers, cattle ranchers, orchard growers, construction workers, etc., peppered throughout his works. Can you think of other contemporary writers working today who focus on this labor force? Has anyone in your background ever worked the land like Steinbeck's characters? What particular kind of work did they do?






*Prize still to be determined. Please leave your email address somewhere in your comment!!
**Don't worry, we'll ask your permission first.
Photo of Octavio Solis by Anne Hamersky.

Topics (and prizes!) for Steinbeck blog series

As we mentioned a week ago, the Cal Shakes New Works/New Communities program will be asking for your help in our development of John Steinbeck's The Pastures of Heaven, starting next Monday. On Oct 19 and 26 and Nov 2, we'll be posting thoughts from Pastures playwright Octavio Solis, Pastures director (and Cal Shakes Artistic Director) Jonathan Moscone, Cal Shakes Director of Artistic Learning Trish Tillman, and Word for Word Performing Arts Company Co-Artistic Director JoAnne Winter (the latter two are collaborating on school curriculum based on Pastures). Each of these blog entries will contain a prompt, and we'd like you to leave your input in the "comments" section, via prose, poetry, video, audio, and whatever else you can think of. Posting your comments on an individual prompt blog during its first week gets you entered in a drawing to win a fabulous prize*, and all comments are eligible for publication in Cal Shakes newsletters, on our website, and/or in the program for John Steinbeck's The Pastures of Heaven during our 2010 season.**

Some things that have been discussed as possible topics include: the hard lives of the rural working class in literature and in real life; utopias; place names and what they mean; how one's landscape defines their possibilities; and fitting into a community. Most if not all of these topics will be covered in the ensuing weeks' prompts. Stay tuned!

*Fabulous prize still to be determined.
**Don't worry, we'll ask your permission first.

Coming Soon: Your Participation.

Beginning two weeks from today, the Cal Shakes New Works/New Communities program will be asking for your help in our development of John Steinbeck's The Pastures of Heaven.

This play—which we've been developing in collaboration with award-winning playwright Octavio Solis and San Francisco's renowned Word for Word Performing Arts Company over the past two years as part of our Steinbeck Project—is now slotted to have its debut on the Cal Shakes Main Stage, kicking off our 2010 season.

But the script is not quite finished yet, and we have one more development workshop coming up in November. To further inform the development process, we'll be posting a series of three prompts on this blog, one every Monday starting October 19. The prompts will be crafted by playwright Solis, Pastures director (and Cal Shakes Artistic Director) Jonathan Moscone, Cal Shakes Director of Artistic Learning Trish Tillman, and Word for Word Co-Artistic Director JoAnne Winter. With each prompt, we'll be asking for your input, via prose, poetry, video, audio, and whatever else you'd like to leave in the "comments" section.

Curious? Check back in with us next Monday for a sneak preview of themes and topics. We can't wait to see what you'll bring to The Pastures of Heaven.

Pictured above: A rock formation in the Corral de Tierra area of Salinas; photo by Derek Smith.

There is such a thing as free brunch

Out of curiosity last October, Susie Falk (then Cal Shakes Marketing Director, now Managing Director) ran a report to find out how many of our subscribers have been with us for 10 or more consecutive years. The result was pretty surprising: A little more than a third of our subscribers have been with us for the long haul. (You like us, you really like us.)

“We should say thank you,” posited Susie. “Can we do some kind of event? Maybe brunch?” It was a simple request, almost off-hand.

Sometimes the best ideas are the simplest ones.

There’s a flood of details that facilitate an event requiring 700+ invitations. I won’t bore you with all of that. Let’s just say that questions were asked and answered, a date was picked, invitations went out, and the response was phenomenal. More than 200 people RSVP'd in the positive; I lost track of how many of them asked one or both of the following things: “Is it really free?” and “This is just so nice of you to think of us this way.”

The morning of the brunch—this past Sunday, Sep 27—dawned hot, and it only got hotter as the sun climbed higher in the sky. The staff has long kidded about the hardiness of our patrons, but the members of the “10+ Club” showed that hardiness in spades on Sunday. Subscribers stood patiently in line for food while staff members introduced ourselves and brought over cold bottles of water and glasses of wine. They exchanged witty banter while filling out name tags that also advertised their number of years subscribing, with many people calculating subscription time based on how many years Cal Shakes had been at the Bruns (19) or how many years Jonathan Moscone had been the Artistic Director (10).

Danny Scheie, L. Peter Callender, and Jonathan Moscone
answer questions from the 10+ Club; photo by Jay Yamada.

After brunch, subscribers made their way into the amphitheater for a panel discussion. Jon reminisced about the highlights (and the occasional lowlights) of his time at Cal Shakes, with Associate Artists L. Peter Callender and Danny Scheie on hand to add their insider memories. At one point Jon opened the discussion up to the entire group, asking for suggestions of shows to add to future seasons. Some of the more interesting ideas floated by the panelists and the patrons included some of the less-performed histories, A Little Night Music, and a production in full Elizabethan garb, which all present agreed would actually be avant-garde for us!

The conversation lasted nearly an hour and, as subscribers filed out, a throng of staff members pressed specially designed thermal tote bags (perfect for picnics) into their hands as yet another thank you for year after year of loyalty.

All in all it was a smashing success. Not too shabby for such a simple idea.