Theresa Rebeck, Marisa Smith, and NJ Rep's Theatrical Sandbox by the Jersey Shore

Theater aficionado’s will likely be familiar with the plays of Theresa Rebeck—the most Broadway-produced female playwright of our time and creator of the hit TV show, Smash. For the upcoming show, Samantha Inside Out at New Jersey Repertory Company, though, Rebeck is not the writer, but the director— a role she has increasingly enjoyed over the last several years. 

Samantha Inside Out is a one-woman show by playwright Marisa Smith, a multi-hyphenate in her own right, who co-founded the publishing company, Smith and Kraus, which specializes in monologues. The two women are longtime friends and collaborators who chat with Jersey Arts about their upcoming show and the ins and outs of the theater business.

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Transcript

Maddie Orton 0:02

Hi, I'm Maddie Orton, and this is the Jersey Arts Podcast. Theater aficionados will likely be familiar with the plays of Theresa Rebeck, the most broadly produced female playwright of our time and creator of the hit TV show Smash. For the upcoming show Samantha Inside Out at New Jersey Repertory Company, though, Rebeck is not the writer but the director, a role she has increasingly enjoyed over the last several years. Samantha Inside Out is a one-woman show by playwright Marisa Smith, a multi-hyphenant in her own right, who co-founded the publishing company Smith and Krauss, which specializes in monologues. The two women are longtime friends and collaborators, and it was a treat talking with them about the ins and outs of the theater business. I know you'll enjoy the conversation as much as I did. Take a listen.

"Samantha Inside Out"

Maddie Orton 0:58

Nice to be here. So let's start a little bit with the show. What is Samantha Inside Out all about?

Theresa Rebeck 1:05

Marisa, you take that one.

Marisa Smith 1:07

Okay. Um, Samantha Inside Out is about a woman who, in the course of the show, we watch this high school teacher of a certain age completely go through a journey and and change her life in front of our eyes. And uh she takes us through her whole life, and she at the end she's pointed in another direction. And hopefully you've laughed and you've cried and you've gone through a lot of emotions and love her, which you will, because the actress is completely lovable. So it's about a woman who changes her life in the course of an evening.

Maddie Orton 1:39

And should we shout out who who our uh lead actor is?

Marisa Smith 1:42

Elizabeth Hefflin is Samantha, and as I said, she's lovable and funny and is just a joy to work with. A playwright's dream, really, a playwright's dream.

Maddie Orton 1:52

And you are the playwright.

Marisa Smith 1:53

Right.

Maddie Orton 1:54

Where did the idea for this originate?

Marisa Smith 1:56

Uh, life, being a woman, watching women, chatting with women, being in a book group, you know, just life and this and observing what goes on, in particular with women as it as they relate to men and their children and the world and getting older. And yeah, and I was, I mean, most of my plays come out of some essential anger, although I don't seem like a very angry person.

Maddie Orton 2:21

I think that's probably a common feeling for a lot of women. I I feel like I'm a pretty angry person. I don't seem like one. I don't know if I can say that, so that's pretty fair. I was thinking about that stage in life. Our character is a, she's a mother, she's a wife, her kids are grown and have flown the nest. She's, I assume, later in her career. That particular moment in time is interesting that you are reimagining who you are as a person, right? Is that sort of part of the moment that she's going through?

Marisa Smith 2:53

Yes. I mean, Samantha is because circumstances have changed. And also, you know, with time you get perspective and you hopefully get wisdom if you've managed to remain self-aware and observant. And often our observations come when there's a crisis. Then we really have to look at the truth square on or or not. But it's I think it's always better to look at it straight on. And that's what Samantha does. She has a crisis and she's she looks at her life and she she doesn't lie to herself. I mean, we as we get older, you know, we lie to ourselves a lot. We have to watch that. We we are in denial a lot, we lie to ourselves, and and you we really it it's it's not a good idea, I don't think it's a good idea. Of course, all the therapists would be like out of business if we didn't lie to ourselves. You know, we'd put everybody out of business. But so she looks at her life dead on, and she tells the audience about her life. And it is not my life. Everyone asked me that. It is it is not. There are aspects of it, of course, that are autobiographical, but it's it's really an amalgam of many women's lives. I'm very, very curious about everybody's life.

Maddie Orton 4:00

And I've been accused of being extremely nosy, and I'm sure I've lost a few friends, but

Finding inspiration as a playwright

Maddie Orton 4:05

well, that is the common sort of, I think probably thing that writers come up against, right? And you're both writers, obviously, Teresa, you're an exceptional prolific playwright yourself. Is that sort of a struggle where people are wondering if you're picking their brain a little bit? Are you always taking notes when you're in book club and things like that? Are you always listening to the conversation?

Marisa Smith 4:27

Teresa, that's for you. You've been at it. Teresa's had a long career and been at it much longer than I. So I'm giving that to you.

Theresa Rebeck 4:35

Every writer faces this question uh in general, because I do know that in different conversations, every now and then you find yourself hearing something really good and then saying to the person you're talking to, can I have that? And uh sometimes you forget to ask, Can I have that? And uh also every now and then I just write about my family. There was one point when I wrote something about my son, and I forgot to tell him I was including it, it was when he got arrested for smoking pot in Central Park, and I put it in something, and we were walking down the street, and I was talking about this piece of writing that I was doing, and I had completely forgotten that it came from his adventures in Central Park. And he he looked at me and he said, You didn't, and I was like, Oh, I forgot, but you know, I would never do anything really mean, but we all we all do it. Every every writer I know does it. Every now and then somebody gets mad at me about it. Um, and I think, well, uh, it's true, nobody has to be related to a writer, but you know, my my family is pretty used to it by now. They they just are used to it.

Maddie Orton 5:52

I mean, I I find that in so many places in life, truth does seem to be stranger and more interesting than fiction, so I could see that being compelling as a writer. I think for me it is.

Theresa Rebeck 6:02

Yeah, for me it is.

Maddie Orton 6:04

And the play takes place uh around a holiday party at the head of the college's house. Samantha's husband is a professor, a pompous professor, which, you know, shocker never happens, I'm sure. Teresa, you worked in in several university settings, I believe. Yes. Does that sort of inform your direction of the piece?

Theresa Rebeck 6:26

Yes, I am familiar with college professors, but Marisa is more familiar with college professors. Her father was a college professor, and so she grew up very much in that environment, and her command of uh the world, her command of describing the world, her command of describing the people who inhabit the world is unparalleled. I've actually never written about uh the university life, and now that I've seen somebody really do it well, I don't know if I'll ever try.

Maddie Orton 6:54

Oh gosh.

Theresa Rebeck 6:55

So I'm really excited to be working on this. One of the things that is absolutely charming to me about the piece is that you just don't ever see these people. She's she's hiding from the uh the academic party um in the college professor's house. And that certainly is what I always felt like when I was at a party in a college professor's house. And so it's very familiar to me and sort of uh the relief of that the party's over there and I'm hiding up here is very, very that's familiar

Creating a one-person show

Theresa Rebeck 7:30

to me.

Maddie Orton 7:30

I love the idea that this is it's a one-woman show. Of course, these characters exist around her, probably, I guess, literally downstairs. But why did you decide, uh, Marisa, to make it all within the confines of Samantha's voice?

Marisa Smith 7:47

Well, the play started as a 10-minute play, and um I gave it to Teresa, and she really, really encouraged me um to turn it into a full length. And and I listened to her because Teresa is the first professional who told me that I was a playwright when I gave her my first play, number many years ago. And she's been really my mentor and my role model for many things.

Theresa Rebeck 8:12

And that's that's very accurate. I read it. I've read many of her plays over the years, and I read this 10-minute version of it. It was called Dino Woman, um, so which I thought was a pretty funny title. Um, but um, and it had a lot of Maurice's gifts well on display, you know, the wit and the anger and the darkness and the light. I really liked it. And I said, I think you should turn this into something longer, and then she did, you know. So I I think that's actually what happened. Like if we had spoken about this idea, I don't know, but it was the perfect form for this content, I think. Yeah, you know.

Marisa Smith 8:53

So I I did what you suggest. And I love writing monologues, so this was fun. It's much harder, though, to write a full-length monologue than a 10-minute one.

Maddie Orton 9:02

Yeah, I would imagine because you're creating, I assume, and I I've never written a full-length play much was a full-length monologue, but are you creating sort of scenes within the piece and these beats for this one person to sort of channel? And I assume she has to motivate it the whole time without having a specific person she's literally talking to. How how do you sort of create that circumstance for her in a way that is grounded but kind of fantastical in a way because this is happening and and um and interesting and engaging? That seems so challenging.

Marisa Smith 9:38

Well, it's a process. I mean, initially I sort of just spewed out a lot of stuff. Okay. And I it went in different directions and and it was just way overblown and overwritten and too much. And we did have in the summer, we did a workshop of the play, and that's when it really started to take shape, and that's where you know Teresa's skill as a director comes in to help me shape it and guide it and make sure that there is a forward-moving engine to it. It's a process of winnowing for me, because I overwrite to to winnow it down, find the engine, and get it on the track.

Theresa Rebeck on directing

Maddie Orton 10:17

Teresa, I of course know you as a playwright. I've seen and read many of your plays. I have a couple on my bookshelf downstairs. How did you get into directing? Have you been doing this for a long time?

Theresa Rebeck 10:31

Uh yes, I actually I have. Uh, I was working, I was doing a lot of work at the Alley Theater in uh in Houston, and the artistic director there, Greg Gregory Boyd, uh, said to me, you know, you should be directing. And uh he gave me a job. He hired me to direct All My Sons and uh with the company there. And I knew the company very well by that point because I had been in residence as a playwright for uh quite a number of years. And I had a couple people say to me, Well, actually, Alan Rickman, who uh became had become a friend over the years, he said, Well, why don't you start with something easy? I mean, it was something you know, I was just like, Yeah, it is kind of hard, but it was I can't even remember how he put it. Well, no, he said, at least just starting with something easy. He was very ironic. And I I hadn't even thought about that, but it was great training to dive into I I I really think Arthur Miller is is a personal hero of mine. And I would still argue at this moment that All My Sons is the great American play. It is the one that really is about America and so deeply psychological. So it was a great, it was a great launch. And uh since then, I've you know, I started directing um my own plays. A lot of people say that you're not supposed to do that. There's really no reason a playwright can't direct their own work. And uh then I started directing plays of playwrights I admire like Marisa. And uh I'm very suited to it. You know, oddly, one of the things that happened over the years is that, you know, you spend a lot of time writing a play and rewriting it, and then talking to artistic directors and doing readings and doing one thing or another, you know, and it's very really a heavy lift. When you finally get, you know, that can take years to get a play from what you wanted to do, what your starting point to, what where it's finally moving into production. And it became more and more frustrating to me that at that moment they basically say, Okay, thanks. We'll see you later, you know. And I I think that is just a ridiculous waste of my knowledge and my talent and my passion. And I think I would say that about any playwright. And I do know other playwrights who, you know, a lot of it seems to be going on a lot more in like England and Australia that this is a natural, a natural course of events. So I'm not quite sure why it's such a challenging idea to so many people. And uh I find it really fulfilling. I I love it.

Maddie Orton 13:23

Yeah, I've always wondered that because I, for what I do, I sort of am there from the beginning to the end. And I I suppose I'm a little bit of a control freak myself. So I think that I would have such a difficult time creating this and and living and breathing these characters and then handing it off and trusting somebody, although I know that that's the process, and that in so many ways other people imbue it with new and different meaning. But I would think that it must feel kind of nice to be able to shepherd those characters to the stage in the way you specifically see it.

Theresa Rebeck 13:57

Yes, I think that is ultimately what happened for me. And um, a lot of times I feel like there are a couple of directors who I like to work with. And there are times when I don't want to direct my own play, I want to dip in and out, and uh and uh, and if it's a director I truly trust, like I uh there's a director out there named Moritz von Stulpenegel, who I've worked with many times, and I trust him, and you know, I also trust his common sense in terms of the way he talks to me, not just in the way he talks to the actors. But sometimes you find yourself in a situation with a, you know, over the years, with a director who just doesn't isn't right on the same wavelength, and then it's just incredibly painful and incredibly difficult. Uh and I just got tired of that. Yeah, I didn't want to do that anymore.

Maddie Orton 14:57

So and so in this project, you are not the playwright, you are solely directing, which must be a sort of completely different artistic tool set for you. How does that feel in in terms of your experience? Do you do you enjoy that having just this one piece to look at?

Theresa Rebeck 15:17

I do. I mean, when you're a director, there's still plenty of creative choices that come into play. Sure. I I really like working with designers. Like that's another thing that happens to playwrights is you just get kind of in general, depending on who you're working with, you get just cut out of the design process. And sometimes that's ridiculous, you know. Um, and I've had moments in other productions where you suddenly are looking at somebody else's design choices and just thinking, this is all wrong. And that didn't happen when you're directing. Um, and I also I really enjoy talking to designers. I feel like they bring a whole different point of view on things that it's really invigorating to think things through. And then also I I enjoy like examining, like, we have a really, I feel like we have a really good set. And I've never worked with this set designer. She works kind of exclusively at, you know, she's on staff at New Jersey rep. She's really good. She, you know, it's very, it's a very tight space, and she understands how to just work with that space. And so that that becomes kind of deeply amusing to go, oh, we could do this, we could go over there, and to kind of examine the world of the play and it's spatially. And so there's that aspect of it that I think is really fascinating. And then your relationship with the actor and the way the actor's process gets engaged is also really fascinating and moving to me. You know, we we do have this enormously talented and very experienced actress, Elizabeth Hefflin. She's she's somebody who has spent her entire career working doing regional theater. So she was, she was, she worked at the alley for I think like 15 years, doing and she would do six plays a year at the alley, and then she went to the University of Delaware. They have a rep company there, where she's been for 20 years, I think. And that's actually what how I know her. I did a couple shows with her down there. So she has an enormous well of professionalism and knowledge, and so being in relationship to a person's psyche and talent is different for a director than a playwright, you know, and so that can be very exciting to me. I love actors. I'm like one of those people who not everybody does. I really I just think they're incredible.

Marisa Smith on publishing & playwriting

Maddie Orton 17:48

Marisa, you are also a multi-hyphenate. You are the co-founder of Smith and Krauss Publishers, which I did not realize was founded initially to create monologue work.

Marisa Smith 18:00

That was those were our first books.

Maddie Orton 18:02

Which by the way, I also have on my bookshelf.

Marisa Smith 18:06

At the time, uh you know, ancient history. Um, the only monologue books around really were those little staple-bound books. So anyway, so yes, my ex-husband and I started Smith and Crauss Publishers in 1990 with monologue books. And we just did it out of our house. It was a real mom and pop thing. And I met Teresa because we published Teresa, and that's how I met her. Because I don't know how I knew this, or it came to my attention somehow that actors were using a lot of Teresa's scenes and monologues in class. And I I can't remember the sequence of events, but it's it Teresa is very popular with um actors who are studying theater and studying acting. She really is. I mean, there are very few. I mean it's true.

Theresa Rebeck 18:51

Actors like me like me. You know, I think it's because I actually my work is tends to be more Chicovian than not, you know. And I think a lot of uh there are a lot of contemporary playwrights who are doing something more cerebral. And act that's not like in the when actors are looking to work, they're looking to engage more than just their brain.

Marisa Smith 19:13

So interesting. So yes, that's how I met. I was Teresa's editor to some extent.

Maddie Orton 19:19

When was this? Do you remember? Um It was in the 90s.

Marisa Smith 19:24

Was it in the 90s? Oh oh also at the time we did a we did a book called The Best Women's Plays of the Year. We did that for many years, and Teresa, I think, was in one of the initial volumes. So that's you know, that's how we met. And now I'm I'm a con I'm the consultant at Smith and Cross, and my younger son is running the company, which is a riot.

Maddie Orton 19:47

Congratulations, that's it.

Marisa Smith 19:48

Yeah, which is really fun. So I work, I work with him. He's sort of my boss.

Maddie Orton 19:54

I have I have two sons, and I feel like they're also my boss, but you know, in a not financially helpful way. Um that's that's really terrific. It says fun. When did you start working as a playwright? When did you move to that piece of your career?

Marisa Smith 20:10

I think my first play was like in 2005 or something. It was a lark. It was a complete lark. I told the boys, I have two sons, that I was writing a play, which was a big mistake because the minute I said I was, I realized I had to finish it because I had to, you know, be a good mom. And it was called Book Group, and it was kind of about my book group. And I decided to study my book group like a sort of an anthropological study. I was a little bored a little bit, tiny bit. And I just so I decided I was really gonna like study them. Like, and then one day I got a gift, you know. I I got a gift, I can't really say what it is. But the one of the women came in and I just thought, uh-oh, there's the beginning of that play of a play. That's the beginning of a play. And that's the one I gave to Teresa, and she said your play, right? And one thing led to another.

Maddie Orton 20:54

That's so terrific.

Marisa Smith 20:54

I mean, it was a complete surprise. I I mean, I had acted, but like, who hasn't? But I had acted, so I did I did know about the theater, and I majored in theater. I mean, I was a theater nerd.

Maddie Orton 21:07

What a terrific friendship and collaboration, though, to be able to lean on each other in those ways and grow together. That's so fantastic.

Marisa Smith 21:15

Oh, it's really you need a circle, you need supporters. I mean, you're in this alone, you know. I love to read Teresa's stuff. I love it, you know, and and she reads my stuff, and you need the support. It's a very lonely kind of thing to some extent. You need people who are your little support group.

Maddie Orton 21:37

It's been several years. You've been creating more work. And how does it feel to be somebody who was previously on the publishing side reading these pieces to now seeing your work up on its feet directed in front of audiences? Oh, it's a it's great.

Marisa Smith 21:52

I mean, it's a you know, it's a second act. It's a great, it's a great thing. It's really fun. I mean, I love it. It it really gave my life a whole nother. Dimension, a big boost. I got back to theater. You know, I had sort of left, I'd left acting because I knew, you know, for that I wasn't going to go forward with that. And then, you know, we published a lot of theater books, so I was sort of on the fringes of theater. But then it got me back in the sandbox. I mean, that's really what it did. Because that's what the theater is. In the best of all worlds, it's like a great sandbox.

Maddie Orton 22:21

Yeah. That's right, Teresa?

Marisa Smith 22:24

But it rarely happens that way. Usually it's like it's like uh tornado, storm, whatever. But when it's when it's great, it's great. And right now it's

Playing in the theater sandbox at New Jersey Repertory Company

Marisa Smith 22:36

great.

Maddie Orton 22:36

And to bring it full circle to NJ Rep, one of the things that I love about that company is it really does, from an outsider's perspective, seem to be that way. It seems to be a real haven for creators, actors, designers to come and make something really exceptional, which for people from New Jersey like myself, is so nice to have in your backyard. I love it there.

Theresa Rebeck 23:02

You know, everybody, Maurice, when Marisa said, Oh, they're interested in doing this play because we had done a workshop, I thought, well, great. And then she and you know, there's one of the producers there is a really interesting man named Evan Bergman. We like Evan so much. And he's directed some of Maurice's plays there. And both Maurice and Evan said to me, it's very small, but you're gonna love it. Yeah, and when I showed up, I was like, wow, it really is small. And I do love it. That was absolutely 100% true. It's very protected. The people are really serious, really talented, and it's no bullshit. I'm sorry, I hope I'm allowed to say that. It's really just so this is a Jersey podcast, please. If you don't, you it's so focused on the thing that we, you know, it is, you know, it's one of those things I sometimes I say to people when I get to do a new play and I get to direct it, like I this happened to me when I did my play Dig at primary stages in New York. It's like this is what we dreamed of when we decided when we were in graduate school, we didn't dream about endless auditions, we didn't dream about doing an episode of Law and Order. I mean, all of these things are part of the job. I I don't mean to make fun of anything, but this is what we dreamed of is discovering a whole character, a world that telling a story this way, and to find yourself in the middle of like this small tiny town in New Jersey where that dream is all there is is really wonderful, you know. I uh we've been having a wonderful time, and uh and then like there was one night we all live in a house down there together.

Maddie Orton 24:42

Oh, that's terrific.

Theresa Rebeck 24:43

And we're all living in this house, and it's like a nice house, it's a really nice house, you know, and so it's kind of great. Like you go to the it's very close to the theater, you go to the theater, you rehearse, you go back. Sometimes we go out to dinner, sometimes we, you know, have leftovers, whatever. And uh one night, all of a sudden, all these things showed up, and like my agent called, and she was like, Oh, these people want this, and they they need it right away, and this other thing is going on. I mean, it just was all of a sudden, I was so mad because I was like, This is what I'm doing now. I'm just doing a play in this very protected space, and it's so good for my my soul and my instrument. And I didn't want to think about you know, politics and people and who needed what and you know, anyway. So I just love it there. It's very it's a very profoundly good space.

Marisa Smith 25:36

It's an ideal, ideal setup, it really is. I mean it is ideal.

Maddie Orton 25:41

I I think people also might not realize the tremendous talent that comes through that theater as well. The three of you, as well as I'm trying to think of who I've seen, you know, Wendy Malik, Dan Loria, Gary Cole.

Theresa Rebeck 25:53

Richard Kind is on social.

Maddie Orton 25:57

It's really crazy. And I'm always so elated when I get to see a show there or cover a show there because it is always such a treat. Yeah.

Marisa Smith 26:06

Well, it's what theater should be, really. I mean, it's a it's a real company and it's a family, and uh they because they work with the designers work together all the time, they have their own language, they're shorthand. Uh it's their own culture. So it reminds me of when I used to do Summerstock, which I loved as a as a you know young adult. Uh it it's that wonderful, you're doing it for the sake of of the of the theater, of the art, of the of the play, you know.

Maddie Orton 26:34

That sounds idyllic. I really look forward to it. And congratulations to both of you for having this experience and getting this show up. It sounds like it'll be a really great time. It's really funny.

Theresa Rebeck 26:46

It's very moving, but it's I always feel like that's important for people to know. It's really funny. Um I feel like there's not enough comedy that gets, you know, and that's what audiences we all need a lift. I love comedies that have real muscle underneath them, and this is one of those plays.

Maddie Orton 27:04

Thanks to Teresa Rebecca and Marisa Smith for joining me. Samantha Inside Out will run from February 19th through March 15th at New Jersey Repertory Company in Long Branch. For more information on the show, visit njrep.org. If you like this episode, be sure to give us a review, subscribe, and tell your friends. A transcript of this podcast, as well as links to related content and more about the arts in New Jersey, can be found on jerseyarts.com. The Jersey Arts Podcast is presented by Art Pride New Jersey, advancing a state of creativity since 1986. The show is co-founded by and currently supported by funds from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. This episode was hosted, produced, and edited by yours truly, Maddie Orton. Executive producers are Jim Atkinson and Isaac Cerna Diaz. Special thanks to New Jersey Repertory Company. I'm Maddie Orton for the Jersey Arts Podcast. Thanks for listening.