Joe Beuerlein: A Conversational Conversation with Calvin MacLean
I recently wrote on my thank you, five minutes blog that actors shouldn’t be theatre reviewers. After all, we are far too fashionable to be bothered with critical thinking; moreover, fewer than half of us can read or write anyway (true fact). Most importantly, though, it’s never a good idea for an actor to critique any theatre or director that could potentially give him or her a paying gig.
But can actors be theatre interviewers? Can we do that without a conflict of interest? Throwing caution to the wind, I daringly gave it a whirl.
Calvin MacLean is the newly crowned Artistic Director of the Clarence Brown Theatre and Department Head of Theatre at the University of Tennessee. His full and impressive resume can be found at the CBT’s website, www.clarencebrowntheatre.com. In a nutshell, MacLean comes to UT after having enjoyed a lengthy stint at Illinois State University and its Illinois Shakespeare Festival, and after having much success in the Chicago theatre scene. With my sister’s nifty I-Pod recording doohickey firmly in hand, I sat down with Calvin this past Thursday, took a deep breath, squared my shoulders, and bravely asked him some take-no-prisoner questions.
Me, ace reporter: So what do you think of Knoxville so far?
Calvin MacLean, interviewee: It’s a pretty great city. About a week after we had moved in, my family and I got out of the house –I mean, it took us four or five days just to unpack boxes, get everything set up. My wife and I were pretty determined to get that done-- So after about four of five days of that, we decided to go and get in a car, and we drove forty minutes and all the sudden we found ourselves in the center of the Smoky Mountains. And that was pretty great. Particularly for this flatlander, to have mountains so close and yet to be living in the city was pretty unusual. Just before we moved, Rebecca was looking through –that’s my wife-- was looking through the paper and there was an article that Lyle Lovett, Nanci Griffith, and Bruce Cockburn, who I’m a big fan of, were playing here. I’m used to that in Chicago but not in Bloomington where I was living, so it occurred to me that Knoxville knows its music, too. So that was pretty exciting. The fact that it has a LORT theatre is pretty exciting and that fact that I’d be leading it was even more exciting. We discovered that there’s some sort of storefront theatre here and people who are interested in doing bizarre and unusual stuff. I think that’s great because that’s certainly what I’m from in Chicago, so that interested me. And it’s a real great place for my family. So we’re pretty impressed.
Me: Like you mentioned, the music scene here is bursting at the seams. The theatre scene though, is sometimes tremendously exciting and sometimes there’s not a whole lot going on. What do you see the Clarence Brown doing as far as engaging the theatre community here in Knoxville? What’s your vision for the theatre?
Calvin MacLean: I knew you were going to ask that.
Me: I have to, I guess.
Calvin MacLean: Well, you know, there’s a lot already gong on. The most important thing to me is quality. The most important thing to me is making sure that the productions stand up, that the professional productions stand up. After that, it’s about community relationships. There are a bunch of different communities here. There’s the Knoxville and East Tennessee community, there’s a university community, there’s a student community. All of those groups have different tastes and want to see different stuff. One of the purposes of a LORT theatre is to provide a kind of home base, a kind of professional quality theatre in which a large audience has a place to go to see some first-class theatre. But what I really want to do is to be sure that there are some other niches. There are other theatres associated with the Clarence Brown-- there’s the Carousel and the Lab. And I want to develop those audiences as well, so that there are people [coming to shows] who might be interested in seeing something a little offbeat or unusual or experimental or student-centered. So we’re already trying to do that with plays like The Laramie Project and Assassins, and some experiments with Shakespeare, as well as kind of regional theatre fare, things that are important for a regional theatre to do. A Year with Frog and Toad is going around the country and is something very much for families, but we’re also doing Fences -- Fences is August Wilson-- and Clarence Brown’s never done an August Wilson.
Me, feeling kidded: Are you kidding?
Calvin MacLean: It’s pretty amazing, isn’t it? It’s about time that that gets done. But then you know, we’ve got our comedies and things that a wide audience might want to come and see. I have to spend a little time here learning of the audience, sort of figuring them out, what there tastes are, what turns them on, and what they’re kind of bored with. I hope to do that this year, and I hope that if that whole group, the whole diverse group of people feel that they’ve got a home here, some place that they’re welcome, some place that they can see a variety of things, and see it done well, my hope is that that will generate a lot more excitement.
Not realizing what a tidy closing statement MacLean had just given me, I pressed on.
Me: You mentioned trying to keep the productions at a very professional quality. Is that part of the reason behind moving undergraduates off the main stage and developing their projects in the Lab?
Calvin MacLean: The Lab and the Carousel, yeah. I think they need a home, a place where they can have productions they can claim as theirs, [not to only have] smaller roles in the productions that are professional. You know, there are good ways and there are not so good ways for professionals and students to mix. And one of the important things about an educational theatre, is that there’s a theatre where students get to show off, get to develop, get to have a place. Now you might think that that’s off-limits in the Clarence Brown, and that’s not necessarily true. We’re going to be figuring that out as well. Last year they did a big musical in which there were a lot of undergraduates. That could still happen. But there’s a mission here to provide professional, regional theatre and students will participate in that, but in ways in which they can really shine, not in which they can necessarily be compared as lesser than the professionals. At the same time, we have a responsibility to develop that talent and have people move sort of up the ladder as their skills increase and that’s one of the things about the graduate program and the undergraduate program that I hope we can do better.
Me: I wish you had been around when I was still in school here, Cal.
Calvin McLean: Really? Are you a former undergraduate?
Me, suddenly off topic and rambling.
Calvin McLean, very very patient.
Me, ten minutes later, back to the point: What play are you looking forward to most this season?
Calvin McLean, diplomatically: Oh, well, I’m looking forward to them all. [laughs] I don’t think I have one that I’m looking forward to most. I’m looking forward to all of them in different ways. I think they will bring slightly different audiences, I think that they will be received in a way that I may partly predict, and may largely be surprised by. I’m going to learn a lot about the audience, and what Knoxville people want to see that’s different than Chicago people, or Bloomington people. I knew my audience pretty well in the Shakespeare festival, and I also knew it pretty well in Chicago, but, you know, you can never really predict what you do, you never know how’s it going to be received, you just largely make kind of a guess, and hope that the things that interest you and what you’re kind of passionate about are things that will interest other people.
Me, desperately hoping to utter clever, snappy, wrapping-up-the-article quip: Knoxville is a bizarre, bizarre city. Good luck in figuring out what the audience wants!
Not exactly the brilliant quip I was hoping for, but it would have to do.
You, blog reader, have to admit that Knoxville is bizarre. I’ve been here for seven years and I still can’t pick out a string of adjectives to put in front of this city’s name that would do Knoxville justice.
It’s been said that the magnetic powers of the Sunsphere can keep you from leaving this city. A friend of mine got only as far at St. Louis –she thought she was driving out to Denver for good-- before the draw of the Sunsphere made her turn her U-haul around and head back home. I personally think that it’s the weird, indefinable nature of Knoxville that sucks people in and keeps them here. It makes living here intriguing, and often surprising, and often frustrating. (And I think it’s that frustration that makes the arts scene in this town so damn good and alive.)
Here’s hoping Mr. MacLean doesn’t figure Knoxville out too quickly. It’d be nice to have him around for awhile.
Comments
knoxville is bizarre indeed.
nice interview. Calvin seems like a good thing for the CBT.
Posted by: Truscott | September 14, 2006 03:22 PM