Adam Rapp: Finding My Theater Family
In addition to his prolific career as a playwright Pulitzer Prize finalist Red Light Winter, Blackbird, Stone Cold Dead Serious, Nocturne, Ghosts in the Cottonwoods, Animals and Plants, Finer Noble Gases, Faster, Trueblinka, Dreams of the Salthorse, Gompers, Adam Rapp has found time to write seven novels and direct two feature films from his own screenplays Winter Passing, starring Ed Harris, Will Ferrell and Zooey Deschanel; and an upcoming adaptation of Blackbird starring Annie Parisse and Paul Sparks. While getting his new play, Essential Self-Defense, ready for previews at Playwrights Horizons, he shuttled downtown to direct Julian Sheppard's bleak drama Los Angeles at the Flea Theatre just extended to April 11. Rapp's unique and unpredictable theatrical voice took shape at Juilliard, where he studied under Marsha Norman, but as he shares in this essay, his association with the small off-Broadway Edge Theater Company—which is co-producing Essential Self-Defense—has been an endless source of artistic inspiration and support.
It's rare these days for a playwright to have a home. We fight for slots, beg for commissions, shop our material mercilessly, simply to reach an audience. I have been lucky thus far, with companies both in New York City and around the country giving my work life. But despite that interest, in the current climate for new plays, there is perhaps no greater comfort for a playwright than having an artistic home. Mine is off-Broadway's Edge Theater, which mounted Stone Cold Dead Serious in 2003, Blackbird in 2004 and now Essential Self-Defense, which will be a co-production with Playwrights Horizons.
My association with Edge Theater began in 2000, when Carolyn Cantor approached me about my play Finer Noble Gases. She had seen and liked a reading of it at Juilliard and went on to direct a one-performance, three-week workshop production of the play at the Williamstown Theatre Festival held in an off-site log cabin. It was done guerrilla style, with actors from the non-Equity company donating their time and energy, not getting paid a dime and performing the play at midnight. I learned a lot about Finer Noble Gases from that experience, and it was clear that Carolyn and I shared an appreciation for difficult material.
While I direct most of my work now, Carolyn is the one director who I completely trust, who understands the tricky tone that needs to be struck in my world, and prefers off-the-beaten-path actors like Paul Sparks, Michael Chernus, Guy Boyd and Heather Goldenhersh. Without fail, whether she is directing Calderon de la Barca's Life Is a Dream or Anne Marie Healy's hilarious and haunting Now That's What I Call a Storm, Carolyn's results are narratively clear, deeply felt, and courageously acted.
It helps that she works with her husband, who happens to be perhaps the most exciting set designer alive. David thinks about what characters hide in their pockets. He talks with me about how a particular room is supposed to smell. He invests in the world of the play like an archaeologist, and in my opinion the combination of David and Carolyn is not so much a director and designer serving a play, but a greater force, which winds up feeling like a very respectful and caring extension of the authorship.
So yes, this is a love letter of sorts. Edge Theater changed my life back in 2003. They are my family. And now that family has gotten larger, with the arrival of Carolyn and David's daughter, Stella, who is a year-and-a-half old now, who I held in my arms 18 hours after she was born, who no doubt will either grow up hating theater or writing, directing and designing it brilliantly.
Carolyn Cantor and David Korins are a dual-headed theater beast unafraid to put challenging, uncompromising work in front of an audience. I know that Carolyn hasn't slept in four weeks. And that David will be breaking all sorts of union rules staying after hours to paint the set and stare at the many things arranged in Paul Sparks' small cinderblock apartment. The three of us, along with eight of the bravest, wackiest actors ever assembled on a New York stage, a handful of designers this is lighting designer Ben Stanton's fourth show with Edge; sound designer/composer Eric Shim's sixth and crew members, won't be getting much collective rest over the next few weeks, but hopefully with the generous help of Playwrights Horizons thank you Tim Sanford! our little tale of a heartland town in the middle of America beset by terror will give audiences a night they won't forget.