Page 18 - the NOISE February 2015

WORDS OF THE HEART,
BIRDS OF A FEATHER
Linda & Tony Sutera in character for their performance of Theatrikos’ presentation of Love Letters by AR Gurney and directed by Adrienne Bischoff.
BY CLAIR ANNA ROSE PHOTOS BY RENE RIVAS
On Valentine’s Day, Tony & Linda Sutera will perform Love Letters, a play Flagstaff’s acclaimed theatre couple, Clifford & Doris Harper-White are notably remembered performing around town during the fledgling years of the local theater scene.
Ms. Sutera tells me about her friendship with the Whites: “When I was cast in the play Close Ties in 1983, Doris became my close friend and mentor. Tony & I met in 1987 and Doris immediately brought Tony into the theatre world. For the next 20 years, we enjoyed a close creative and social relationship with Clifford & Doris, whom we were both lucky enough to share the stage with and be directed by. We had the pleasure of watching
Clifford & Doris perform Love Letters in 1997 and again in 1999. We feel honored to perform this play, one we consider to be the signature piece of our dear friends and mentors.” Astute theatre- goers may recall the Suteras interpreted this script once before, for NAU’s Golden Stagehands Fundraiser in 2012.
“It is a beautiful story of love and friendship,” Ms. Sutera tells me about the Pulitzer Prize-winning drama AR Gurney first premiered at the New York Public Library in the late 1980s.
“Most people will be able to relate to something or many things throughout the play. You have many relationships in life and we feel that everyone can relate to the fact that they don’t always go the way you want them to go.”
“When we first met, Tony was a football coach and I was already involved with the theatre,” Ms. Sutera reminisces. “Fortunately for us, Tony also became involved in the theatre and it has been a huge part of our lives ever since. We are getting ready to celebrate our 27th wedding anniversary on March 14. We have performed in 16 plays together and have somehow been involved together in over 30 plays. In addition to our theatre collaborations, we have also been lucky enough to be involved together in various movie projects, commercials and other community projects and events.”
Love Letters director Adrienne Bischoff has acted in recent productions of A Doll’s House, Game Show, and God of Carnage, to name a few. Later this year, Ms. Bischoff will be directing her first full-length, fully staged play, Good People, which rides on the heels of her award-winning direction of a short play at the Northern Arizona Playwriting Showcase last year. “It was a one-person show starring Tony Sutera, so Love Letters will be my second time directing Tony, although with someone as talented as Tony, there’s not much I need to do.”
Ms. Bischoff also assistant-directed Miracle on 34th Street with Ms. Sutera and Virginia Brown as co-directors. “So my directing experience is inextricably intertwined with the Suteras, which I couldn’t be happier about. They are both very down-to-earth, kind people who just happen to be incredibly hard-working and talented. I would take any opportunity to work with and learn from them.”
I ask Ms. Bischoff how directing compares to her experience
acting. “So far, surprisingly, directing is just as fun as acting and I wasn’t expecting it to be,” she shares. “I thought for sure the excitement of being onstage and inhabiting another character couldn’t be matched, but directing is just as intense, and with both, the goal is the same: help those characters on the script inhabit the actors onstage. Both directing and acting are wonderful exercises in empathy and understanding.”
Love Letters is traditionally a simply blocked play portraying two characters reading letters shared over the years.
“The script details their relationship over the decades well enough that the audience will understand they were friends who always had feelings for each other but were rarely expressed, except in their letters,” she says. “They grew up together as children, but life took them on separate paths and they didn’t see each other as often as they wanted to.”
“I think everyone should relate to this poignant story about complicated, but undying, love,” Ms. Bischoff continues. “I think, upon leaving the theater, people will think about their own romantic lives; e.g. the ones that got away, the ones who stayed, and how love can survive in even the harshest of conditions. I think it’s a very honest play about love that should evoke feelings of gratitude for those people who inspire, challenge, and love us.”
Love Letters will be presented at the Doris Harper-White Community Playhouse, 11 W. Cherry Avenue, 7:30PM Thursday, February 12 & 2PM Saturday, February 14, with a special dinner theater performance in 7 Ate 9, 2500 S. Woodlands Village Boulevard, on February 15 at 6:30PM. Theatrikos.com
OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS FOR ASPIRING PLAYWRIGHTS
From Noon to 2PM on Sunday, February 8, Theatrikos and NAU Honors presents The Playwright Café Junior Series for Young Writers, a free playwriting workshop with playwright Maia DellaCascata at the Doris Harper-White Community Playhouse.
Northern Arizona University professor William Cordeiro tells me how this workshop came to be. “This fall semester — my first in Flagstaff — I coordinated a play festival and cabaret at Fire Creek Coffee with my Honors playwriting class and other student actors and directors at NAU,” he says. “I wanted to continue building off that success while making a sustainable connection with the community and sharing resources and knowledge. Theatrikos seemed like a great fit, as we both have similar goals. Drew Purcell was awesome and very receptive; together we’re trying to create more opportunities for young playwrights and those interested in the theater. Ultimately, the vitality of local theater will depend on cultivating new participants and audiences.”
Mr. Cordeiro tells me the aims of the Playwright Café. “We hope to help aspiring playwrights, as well as screenwriters, actors, theater types, writers, and others, connect and gain a greater sense of community. Fundamentally, playwriting is a
collaborative endeavor. Young or aspiring playwrights don’t always have a lot of opportunities to see their work staged or read, which is important in the play development process. The workshop will likely have a feedback session, an opportunity for the playwright to hear a portion of their work out loud, some time for discussion, and information on playwriting techniques as well as resources available to keep up one’s craft and get (or stay) involved in theater.”
That prospective playwrights feel welcome is very important to Mr. Cordeiro. “I don’t want anyone to feel intimidated or excluded from this workshop,” he says. “It doesn’t matter how much previous experience someone might have with theater or writing.”
To attend the Playwright Café Junior playwriting workshop with Ms. DellaCascata, it is requested interested participants RSVP and submit a writing sample to Mr. Purcell, drew@ theatrikos.com, by February 5.
ASTRONOMICAL PROJECTIONS
For his final capstone project NAU student Robert Barnes, is directing Touch, by Tony Press-Coffman. Mr. Barnes, a duel major in Graphic Design & Theater, is originally from Cave Creek & transferred after studying at Paradise Valley Community College.
“I started acting when I was a young child,” he says of his theatrical beginnings. “And moved into more performing arts, playing music, drawing, and singing early in my teens. My love and passion came from the art of entertaining people, making them laugh, cry, and all the emotions in between.”
Accomplished with a number of community & profession- al theatre productions, Mr. Barnes was recently nominated for a statewide theatre award and worked on a short film, In Tandem, which won a Rocky Mountain Student Emmy. His most recent role was Leonard Irving in NAU’s production of In the Next Room, or the Vibrator Play.
Mr. Barnes tells me why he chose to direct Touch. “I loved how relatable this show is to people, especially people of my generation. I found the choices of the characters capturing and beautiful and couldn’t pass up the opportunity of directing such a profound story. A lot of personal experiences also lead into the choice of this show. I felt I could truly connect with the characters. It became my obligation to transform the words on the page into a tangible experience, for people to see and feel.”
“For those who know nothing about the show, it is a beautiful story about the loss of true love, and people who are left in the wake of its departure,” Mr. Barnes describes. “The story centers around a young astronomer who is left in the aftermath of his wife’s tragic death. Through the ashes of his devastated remains emerge new relationships that will change his life forever.”
Touch will be performed 7:30PM February 13 & 14, 2PM Febru- ary 15 at the NAU Studio Theater. Nau.edu/theatre/events
| Have art? arts@thenoise.us
18 • FEBRUARY 2015 • the NOISE arts & news • thenoise.us