Interview with Bridgett Bamer MacCracken, booking manager, production manager, tour manager, stage manager, actor; Steve Buescher, associate school director, teacher, performer; Emilia My Sumelius, performer, assistant teacher; Marya Errin Jones, alumna, guest artist

By Mark McKenna

Bridgett Bamer MacCracken: I’ve been here since ’96. One of those years I was a student. They hired me for "Mad Love," then we went on our European tour. We came back and I became their production manager.

Mark McKenna: Why do you work here?

BBM: I am interested in the actor-as-manager aspect, and certainly theater of place and community. I found out about Dell’Arte through American Theatre and an article about the Mad River Festival. I got a BFA from a school in Ohio, and we had to do an internship to complete our degree. I came out here to complete my internship, whereas most people would go to New York or LA and try and learn about the business that way. This is the kind of business that I want to be in, so I came here and I haven’t left yet. Came for two months and stayed for five years.

MM: You book the tours and get to go out on tour?

BBM: And do the tours. So, I’d better do a good job or I’ll be paying for it.

MM: How does Dell’Arte’s relationship with its community here resonate on the road. When people away from here see them perform, what do you think their response is?

BBM: I think we try to find ways of incorporating the communities where we are into the show, whether it is comedy through some reference to a local place or an in-joke that everybody knows. I do think that the issues Dell’Arte finds important within this community very much apply to the world at large. Taking these contemporary issues and using them with style makes it appeal to a really large international audience. And we into communities and do workshops with adults or children, and lean about all the different places we go through the people there.

MM: Why is style important to theater?

BBM: I think it gives us a reference point, something for us all to understand. When we are talking about physical style, it appeals universally, whether we are in Venezuela or we are in Utah in Mormon country. There is something the same there. Also it is so much more visually interesting, exciting and fun to play. That also carries across in our work.

MM: What do you see as challenges that Dell’Arte needs to face in the future?

BBM: In an organizational way, I think we are maxed out. I don’t think there is any way we can do one more thing unless we hire more people. They have a new mission statement. They have a new five-year plan. They are really looking towards the future and taking the ideas that they have created this year and how to integrate them. That’s what the struggle will be, that is for sure.

MM: What do you see as the most challenging part of that struggle?

BBM: I think it will be always money, and how to give more time for the artistic creation, as opposed to the administration. People aren’t burnt out, but I think there is the potential for that if people’s artistic side isn’t fed. I think also for them to figure out – we are the "next generation" and they consider themselves the "prestigious" company – just how that works out and what that means. We are the ones who are going to be doing most of the touring because we are younger and we can do that. For them they want better deals, special runs, international things. They’ve done the grueling traveling and touring.

MM: Why are you here rather than somewhere else?

Steve Buescher: I am here because there are a whole lot of opportunities to work one-on-one with the company. As an actor I can work side-by-side with Donald and have him tell me on the stage what I am doing right and well, and then go to the Logger Bar and hear what I am doing wrong. As a teacher it is kind of like an office without walls. You hear everything that is going on, it is all public domain. Joan is right there. I can ask her about teaching, or this book, or that book, and it is always circular constantly, apprentice kind of stuff.

MAJ: I am somewhere else. I live in Albuquerque and I am in a repertory theater company there. So I love coming back here to work, and I also love to create work with the people there.

MM: And you trained at Dell’Arte? How did that influence you as an artist?

Marya Errin Jones: A lot. I started out in improvisation. I didn’t go to all the big schools, the colleges and things. I did go to some classes, but I got a lot by creating theater companies, improv groups, doing it and then coming here. That really helped to gel my thoughts. I felt like I was hitting my head on the ceiling of being able to create stuff until I got here. I am just starting to use what I learned.

MM: You are currently with a company. Can you point to anything that you bring from Dell’Arte to that company consciously?

MAJ: I think the idea of flexibility, definitely. Trying to get a hold onto your own ideas, and claiming them whether they are right or wrong. Fighting for them. Not fighting each other, but fighting for the idea. I think I take that there. Also a desire to create poetic theater, theater that is metaphysical and strange, thought-provoking. I am the only person of color in that company as well, so I try and bring those ideas that I have culturally to that group, too.

MM: Can you tell me the name of that company?

MAJ: Riverside.

MM: Emilia, how about your self?

Emilia My Sumelius: I took a workshop back in ’96 and hungered for more of it so I came back and did the year program. I interned the summer after. Everything just fell into my lap. I did some assistant directing, costuming, prop making, the whole works. It just seems really like a human way of working. Everyone has got their quirks and personalities and you just dance with it. And then all the touring and meeting all these kids that just absolutely light up when they see us. It is just a magical place, that is the word. Someone isn’t able to do this job with this group of kids, they’ll call me.

MM: How did you first hear about Dell’Arte?

SB: I was at Cal Arts and Michael Fields came and did a workshop. Then the next two years he came and directed shows that I kept getting good parts in. That kind of twisted my whole way of thinking of theater and ensemble. Before, I didn’t know that as an actor you could have your own thoughts. I was trained to be able to do what they wanted you to do.

MAJ: I was working as a teaching artist at the zoo. I was going around to all the schools and teaching about conservation and things. I went around with this thing called the Bio Band. A friend of mine who had gone here brought Daniel to do the workshop. I ended up going and auditioned.

A: I had a friend who had studied here. He was my assistant director at a Renaissance fair. I really liked his style.

MM: What are your dreams for Dell’Arte that include how you can have an impact on that?

SB: I would love to see the Dell’Arte training program be what it could possibly be. Have all heavy-hitters hitting as hard as we can, and really be the next Lecoq 1950s ensemble on the map.

A: I would love to have more time to explore the work. I mean we have a good time and we throw things together and they are good. It just feels like we could have gone a lot deeper.

BBM: I would like to see Dell’Arte nurturing their alumni more – not only the ensembles that they have gone out and created, but using them as a resource for us as an acting company, for more actors, for possible tours. A really strong network.

MAJ: I think I agree with Emilia. It was great to create this show in four weeks, but I am learning so much more about it now in doing it again. Knowing about other groups that have only done five shows in 25 years, how does that effect the work that they develop? Wouldn’t it be amazing to work on a project with Dell’Arte for a year or two years? Go away, come back and then tour it. I hope that I can keep coming back and find new projects to do, bring my solo projects here and my company here to perform. I love coming here.

Mark McKenna is artistic director and an ensemble member of Touchstone Theatre, in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. He is a graduate of the Lecoq International School of Theatre in Paris. He has taught theater classes at Lehigh University and the University of Pennsylvania, and the MFA Theatre Program at Towson State University. McKenna is active in the growth of the Network of Ensemble Theatres. He is a board member of Alliance for Building Communities, a regional community-development corporation.

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