BoD Episode 18: Bill Rauch

Bill Rauch is the inaugural artistic director of the Perelman Performing Arts Center. His work as a theater director has been seen nationwide, from low-income community centers to Broadway, including the Tony Award-winning production of Robert Schenkkan’s All The Way and its sequel, The Great Society. His New York credits also include the world premiere of Naomi Wallace’s Night Is A Room at Signature Theatre, the New York premiere of Sarah Ruhl’s The Clean House at Lincoln Center Theater, and the site-specific Occasional Grace for En Garde Arts.

From 2007 to 2019, Bill served as artistic director of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, the country’s oldest and largest rotating repertory theater. There, he directed seven world premieres and more than 20 productions, including Shakespeare, classic musicals, and a queer reimagining of Oklahoma!. Among his signature initiatives was commissioning 37 new plays exploring moments of change in American history through “American Revolutions: the United States History Cycle.” The project produced landmark works, including Lynn Nottage’s Sweat, Paula Vogel’s Indecent, Lisa Loomer’s Roe, Universes’ Party People, Culture Clash’s American Night, and Robert Schenkkan’s LBJ plays.

Bill is also co-founder of the Cornerstone Theater Company, where he served as artistic director from 1986 to 2006, directing more than 40 productions in collaboration with diverse rural and urban communities. He has directed world premieres at Portland Center Stage, Center Theatre Group, and South Coast Rep, and has worked with major theaters including American Repertory Theater, Yale Rep, Arena Stage, Seattle Rep, Berkeley Rep, and Pasadena Playhouse. His production of The Pirates of Penzance was staged with Portland Opera.

His honors include the 2018 Ivy Bethune Award from Actors' Equity Association, a Ford Fellowship, the Fichandler Award, Theatre Communications Group’s Visionary Leadership Award, the Margo Jones Medal, and the United States Artists Prudential Award. He also received Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle nominations for directing All The Way.

Bill has taught at the University of California, Irvine, the University of Southern California, and the University of California, Los Angeles. He studied at Harvard College and lives in New York City with his husband, Christopher Liam Moore, and their two children.

https://pacnyc.org/

This monthly gathering invites directors and other theatre makers to come together, share experiences, and seek advice in a supportive community. There is often an isolating nature to directing, and this new space aims to foster connection and collaboration. The Board of Directors is an opportunity to set aside time each month to be alongside members of the Directing community all over the world. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:07

Sometimes you sit down with someone for the first time, and within minutes, it feels less like an interview and more like an ongoing conversation you somehow stepped into midway through. That was my experience with Bill Rausch. I've known Bill's work for years, long before we ever met. First through his groundbreaking leadership at Cornerstone Theater Company, where he helped redefine what community-engaged theater could look like in America. His work has always asked a bigger question than simply how to make a production. It asks who theater is for, who gets invited into the room, and how inclusion itself becomes an artistic practice. What struck me most in this conversation was his generosity, not just with stories or ideas, but with curiosity. There was no distance, no hierarchy. He met me immediately as a fellow traveler, someone equally interested in the questions of directing, leadership, and how we build communities through art. We talk about inclusion, about redefining excellence, about the courage required to lead with values inside large institutions, and about the tension between rigor and accessibility. We talk about process, about uncertainty, and about what it means to make theater that doesn't simply entertain, but has the possibility of changing how we live alongside one another. At one point after we finished recording, Bill said this was one of the richest and most meaningful conversations he'd had with someone he had just met. I felt exactly the same. This is my conversation with Bill Roush. Bill, thank you for joining me. I, as I've said to you before, I have known about your work for the longest time. I have a very distinct memory of being on the bus in high school, reading the physical copy of American Theater magazine about Cornerstone Theater. So that's, we can tell how old that is of the physical copy of American Theater magazine on a high school bus. But I remember reading about the work that you were doing in LA and how for me at that time, young high school student, how radical that seemed. Really my pleasure.

SPEAKER_01 2:35

I think the uh impulse to include comes from a lot of personal things. Uh I think as a gay man uh growing up uh in this world, in in this country, uh that that that's part of it. Uh I have a brother who's deaf and has cerebral palsy. Uh my parents were very inclusive people. Um, we often had people staying with us, people who maybe needed some help. Um and I don't know. It's just the world is so much more interesting if you include people who are not like yourself as well as the people who are like you. And so that's been uh yeah, I do think it's been a real driving force in a lot of what I've tried to do throughout my life. What does it mean?

SPEAKER_00 3:27

I I'm gonna ask this question and I also know the intrinsic kind of negativity that this question seems to have, but it I don't mean it this way. What does it cost you artistically or even institutionally to work that way and to have that drive to work that way when maybe the industry in a lot of places or institutions don't want to work that way?

SPEAKER_01 3:51

What an interesting question. Wow. Um my immediate response is that uh yeah, what it costs is that sometimes the field is not set up to uh think of inclusion as the uh way to move. And uh I would also say working in communities that you are not a member of, uh working with communities that you're not a member of um has its own challenges, you know, in terms of w what the heck am I doing in ex-neighborhood or ex-community. Um and uh so believing in the work and believing in the integrity of the process, that there are people who are members of the community who are at the absolute center of what we're making, and that it's okay for me as a guest um in that community to be part of a project. Um wrestling with that, I think, costs something.

SPEAKER_00 5:01

And I know this, I know the origin stories of Cornerstone. I know the work in Virginia and North Dakota. I don't know pre-Cornerstone, Bill Raush, though. Were you you were making theater at that point? You were you were already interested in this thing, and then this idea of a radical inclusion that was already a part of your life. Can you talk a little bit about um when there was a moment when directed shiftings shifted from something that you did to something that you needed to do?

SPEAKER_01 5:40

Beautiful question. Um Well, I would say first of all, that I think like for so many of us in this field, um, theater just felt essential. It just felt like the air I needed to breathe from early, early in elementary school. Um, I directed, I acted, but I also experimented a little bit with directing. Even in middle school, um I had adapted our class was reading A Midsummer Night's Dream. And um I was frustrated with all the arrogance of a seventh grader. I was frustrated that that the language was too um difficult for my classmates to understand. So I decided to adapt it. And uh I rewrote A Midsummer Night's Dream, and then uh my English teacher asked me if I'd like to direct it with the f the following year, my version with that year's crop of seventh graders. So that was my first time directing. Um I directed a little bit in in high school as well, a couple things that I wrote. Uh, and then I thought I still wanted to be an actor. I got to college. I directed my first full-length play when I was a freshman, and it was very, very clear to me at that point, like crystal clear, like a light switch had been switched on. You're a director, you're not an actor, you have anything to offer the world, it might be as a director. And so I just um I would say that that need to direct kicked in right then. And uh I directed over the course of my uh four years in college, I directed 26 projects, believe it or not. Um, that included summers of summer theater uh on campus as well as uh the academic years. But, you know, I really that was it. That was my love, that was my passion. I was so hungry to learn by doing. I had an incredible mentor in college, a woman named Joanne Breuer, who uh taught me so much, but I learned so much from my peers. Uh yeah, I just loved it. I loved it. And I still do. I love it just as much today as I did when I was 18.

SPEAKER_00 7:48

Well, you said you said a word that I was going to bring up, which is hungry, and you you seem still to this day hungry. Not in a not in a capitalist, capitalistic, rapacious way, but like actually like feeling the need to to satiate, like oh, oh, I still want that thing. I feel that with every project that you do and uh where you go in your career. Is there a question that you were trying to answer when you first started making theater that you're still asking today, that you're still trying to answer today?

SPEAKER_01 8:21

Absolutely. And again, sorry I keep uh taking a moment to compliment your questions, but beautiful, beautiful question. Um Yeah, I think that question is um can I be part of theater projects that are artistically adventurous, ambitious, that are breaking new ground, that bring people together from as many different walks of life as possible. That's I cared about that when I was 18, and I care about that now.

SPEAKER_00 8:52

That's beautiful. That's beautiful. I teach, I teach university here. Um, and one of the things that I I really kind of drill into the students is their is their why. They're kind of Simon Sinek, why do I do this thing? And um it's one of the things where I've realized that a lot of people aren't ever asked that question. Why do you do this thing? I was really good at it. I yeah, I I did this in high school, and my parents have been pushing me this entire time. But to really get them in the point where they kind of have to be asked that question, they reevaluate that. And what you've just brought up is is very similar to what a lot of um a lot of them get to is a feeling that they've not been able to express or articulate the same for myself. I create communities so that empathy can be expressed. That's every project that I do. Beautiful, beautiful. So I love that. Um your work with Cornerstone really redefined what theater um could be in relationship to community. Um what did you discover there that you couldn't have learned anywhere else?

SPEAKER_01 9:56

To have the courage to get to know and to collaborate with the people that you're most afraid of?

SPEAKER_00 10:05

Can you can you go further into that? Can you explain what do you mean by that?

SPEAKER_01 10:10

Well, first of all, I want to say about Cornerstone that Cornerstone was co-founded by myself and a brilliant woman named Allison Carey, who's a playwright, a Dometurg, and a climate activist and uh an extraordinary human being. Um, and there were 11 of us who were founding members uh when we started. So Cornerstone has always been and still is, it's turning 40 in June uh this year, and it's always been a collective effort, uh a deeply collaborative effort. So I'm happy to dig in and talk about Cornerstone, but I just want to frame that very clearly that that I've I've been lucky to be part, I was lucky to be a part of Cornerstone for 20 years and to learn from it and be shaped by it. Um, but it was always in collaboration, both with my professional colleagues and with the communities we were working with. Yeah, the you know, the beautiful thing about Cornerstone's work is that it constantly reinforces that every single human being uh is an artist, whether they've had the opportunity to express it or not. And that every single human being is just a mass of contradictions and you know, has a beautiful spirit to uh offer, you know, in the right environment and the right collaboration. And I just feel like that's what Cornerstone taught me again and again and again. I fantasize about doing a cornerstone project. I mean, in a way, they're all cornerstone projects since the years since I've left Cornerstone, but doing actually a project with Cornerstone Theater Company again someday.

SPEAKER_00 11:54

Well, it'll it'll happen. I'm sure it's gonna happen. There's there's no doubt about that.

SPEAKER_01 11:58

I'm your lips.

SPEAKER_00 12:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:01

Um I had on I've never said that out loud in a public setting, though, by the way.

SPEAKER_00 12:06

So here we go. So now you've put it into the universe. Yeah. There it is. Um, I had on Brian Doris from Theater of War Productions uh uh recently on the podcast, and we were talking about I mean, obviously he's working with you know some of the finest actors on the planet and now incorporating um public figures, you know, they've got a production uh soon of with Dr. Anthony Fauci and Zoran Mamdani. So like there's that, but he's but he said all of that is a beautiful thing of centralizing the event for the actual conversation which is with the community, the dialogue that after afterwards is the real thing. Um is excellence different in a community-based context? Do you have to redefine what excellence is? I mean, I'm thinking the industry at large or these things that we have of awards and all that, they are focused on the professionalism of things. And excellence is measured in that respect. But when you're working with a community setting, does excellence have to be redefined? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:16

Yes, yes, yes, yes to that question. Um, not yes at the answer, but yes to asking that question. Um let me just say about Brian briefly that I am such a big fan. And I was so proud an early Theater of War iteration uh happened at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Yeah when I when I when I was first there as artistic director. Um I feel like that question, the the the kind of um false binary between excellence and inclusion, uh, between excellence and community participation. I feel like I've been in that kind of soup um for 40 years. And uh, any time the idea that there's such a thing as objective excellence is ridiculous. Yeah. Um there's there there's excellence in so many uh there's there's so many facets of excellence. And so it's a very personal and very political uh stance that you take when you when you define excellence. Um I remember uh early in Cornerstone's life, Allison and I were sitting in an office of somebody at the National Endowment for the Arts, and the this individual said, Look me in the eye. Look me in the eye. Nothing that is that involves amateurs will ever be of national excellence, and you will never receive a dime of federal taxpayer money because what you do is not of excellence. So it's been a long, wow, long dialogue. And uh uh needless to say, you know, I I think you know, excellence, uh the integrity of process, uh, authenticity of community expression, uh, excellence of how people have grown through the process. Um and sure, w how was the piece entertaining? How did the piece open up new ways of thinking? Did the piece move you on an emotional level? Did it touch your heart? I mean, you know, we could you and I could both go on and on riffing different facets of excellence. Um, but the but the false binary um between excellence and inclusion, I I categorically do not accept.

SPEAKER_00 15:33

Good. I'm glad I didn't think I didn't think any anything other than that, but um Yeah, I'm reading, I'm currently it's actually sitting here right here. Uh it's called Rebuilding the Front Porch of America. Oh wow. And uh it is Who wro who wrote that book? Patrick Overton, uh Essays on the Art of Community Making. Um it's a a friend, uh another uh director on the podcast uh introduced it to me. And there's it's there's an essay in there about a uh a director who decides to to go and make, you know, kind of like uh Molly Smith did with Perseverance, just gonna go to a place and just start making theater. And, you know, maybe they're maybe there are professional actors, maybe obviously there's a lot of amateurs or just people, and I'm just gonna make theater. And um the guy asked him, he said, Well, you know, did the quality of the production suffer? And he said, Of course it suffered. It's not the same thing. But these people are telling the stories and and they're seeing each other. Like I'm watching my dentist give this beautiful monologue, just this beautiful uh rendition of their life. Of course it's not the same as something I'm gonna go watch at a you know main stage theater or Broadway, wherever regional theater. But that's not the point. I'm not going to see that. I'm going to see them. I'm going to see what is being made that way. Um and I I just I thought that was a beautiful thought of and as you just articulated, like there excellence means excellence wherever you're at. There's not a there's not a you're on Broadway, you're excellent, you're anywhere else, you're not. Um, and just because you're not a professional at it is um yeah, I thank you for saying that out loud. Um so you've moved from grassroots organizations uh into leading major art institutions, as you said, Oregon Shakespeare Perlman Arts Center. Um what what did you have to or what are you continuing to protect as you scale up and what have you had to let go?

SPEAKER_01 17:43

It's interesting. When I made the decision to step away from Cornerstone, you know, I stepped down after 20 years, and I knew then, and I could say without uh hesitation, that I knew I would never work for an organization with the purity of mission of Cornerstone Theater Company. And that that was a choice, you know, to walk away from what I thought would be my entire life's work. Um and so that, you know, that that was uh that was a decision and uh it hurt my heart, uh, and and it still does. At the same time, I feel like my personal values and values that were instilled in me through Cornerstone's work um have remained really active in the work that I've tried to do at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, at Pac NYC, as we call Perelman for short. Um, and you know, wherever I've worked as a as a guest artist, I I've tried to um always bring those values with me. It's impossible to separate who I am now from my 20 years with Cornerstone because they're so the foundation. It's the cornerstone, obviously. The cornerstone of of my career and uh Yeah, so completely tangled together in a beautiful way.

SPEAKER_00 19:06

When and this is difficult to ask just because you're in these institutions, but I also know that you're inside pushing. Um when institutions say they want community engagement, what do they usually get wrong about what they think that that title means, community engagement?

SPEAKER_01 19:24

I think both projects that I've been part of and projects that I've observed, I think sometimes um larger institutions uh talk about community engagement, but they actually don't want to cede power in terms of decision making or change um methodology. Um and and you know, pause and reprioritize um decisions based on um the collaborator's feedback. And I think that I have fallen into that trap certainly, both as an artist and as an arts leader sometimes. And I've watched sometimes um others fall into that trap quite quite disastrously.

SPEAKER_00 20:11

Aaron Powell What can we do about that? How do we how do we set that up? How do we how do we, you know, we knowing that, how do we what do we build? What are the structures we can build for that to happen?

SPEAKER_01 20:23

Well, I think the one thing that we can't do is throw up our hands and say, see, it doesn't work. We can't, we can't do it, it doesn't happen. Um X institution has, you know, no business trying to collaborate in in with community or for community to, you know, give up. Um I I do think that collaboration between communities and arts institutions, I I think that the upsides are worth the risks of the work. I really do. Um I remember uh Judy Baca, who uh runs Social and Public Art Resource Center, um, certainly did in the years that I was in LA, uh a Chicano mural making organization, a visual arts organization that's that's quite amazing. And I remember Judy had a really interesting uh mantra, which is that the community was responsible for the content of any work of art, uh, and that the professional artist was responsible for the shaping. And um and and she had that very interesting, clean distinction between content and form. Um I don't know that I think that applies in all situations. I'm not sure it applies in the but there's something there, right? Yeah, there's something about form versus content. Um that I think is is really Yeah. It it it resonates for me. It resonated for me when I heard it and it still does.

SPEAKER_00 21:59

Yeah, I'm that I'm I'm letting that sit with me for a second because there's something there. I want to investigate that further. That's interesting. Um we can talk about that in our next conversation. Hey, from there you go. From your lips, as you said. You're putting things into the universe, Bill. What's going to happen? Following your lead, Adam. Following your lead. Um when you enter into a room, uh, I'm always fascinated by um schools, institutions, they train an actor how to warm up to come into a room. There's so much time spent on that. And I don't know of anywhere that talks about what a director needs to do to walk into the room. There's no kind of preparation training warm-up for a director to come into the room. Do you have a process before you come in of what you need to do to be that satellite dish for those actors, to be the sounding board, to be the perfect audience for that rehearsal? Because so many times I know we are fielding calls, uh, conversations with designers, producers got to do this, you got to do, you're running, you're maybe can get a sandwich in before you get it to rehearsal. But that time period is a precious time period for us to kind of clear our heads. What is your process or or what are you what are you working on? What do you know that you need before you can come into the room?

SPEAKER_01 23:24

Very interesting topic. Um, I would say that for years, I primarily leaned on the design process and the casting process. As um, or if I were directing a Shakespeare, for instance, at Oregon Shakespeare Festival, we almost always did custom uh cuttings of the plays, you know, if there were multiple quarto and folio versions, uh, really spending, you know, weeks and weeks kind of combing through every comma, you know, every disc difference to try to think what was best for this production of Hamlet, let's say. Uh and so this the text preparation, the design, especially scenic design, but also costume design, uh, and uh the casting process, um, usually not in that order, by the way, were always the primary way that I prepped. In 2009, my second season at Origin Shakespeare Festival, I directed the world premiere of a play called Equivocation by Bill Kane. Bill Cain is uh a genius. Um, I I don't use the word lately in terms of the number of geniuses that I've known in my life. And uh he was absolutely brutal with me about what he saw as my lack of preparation. And we would meet for two, three hours every morning before rehearsal beginning that afternoon and that evening, um, to prep. And it absolutely shifted my relationship to preparation for rehearsal. Um, I because I've always been since I was 22, 23, I've been an artistic director. I've had that day job, right? My day job is to lead an institution and to try to, you know, help live the mission and the values of that institution and raise money and dealt with all the HR issues that you deal with in leadership and trying to give other artists opportunities. And I want to be very clear, I've also, you know, part of the choice to be an artistic director for all these years, part of the privilege of being an artistic director, is that I've been able to do a lot of passion projects of my own as an artist, right? I've been able to hire myself to do things that I wanted to do. Um, so it's been an extraordinary gift in my life. But it's also, you know, I'm often like on the phone or on an email or in a meeting, like right up to the moment rehearsal starts. So it was right. And I'm sure you can relate to that. And many, many, many uh people listening can relate to that. Um, so for Bill Kane to say you're not spending enough time preparing for rehearsal was uh very uh challenging for me to hear um because of my yes, but I have to, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But anyway, it did, it did change things for me. And I would say that I spend more time and more energy and and uh uh insist on my collaborators spending more time and more energy preparing for rehearsals. And a lot of it is just taking the time to talk through what's at stake in the rehearsal that day or the rehearsals that day, you know, from something as basic as where are people entering and exiting um the scene to at least have a thought about that before jumping in. Um uh trying to dig into what the themes of the of the material are, what are the challenges that these particular actors or one of these actors might be facing that we can help address. Um if it's a musical, you know, trying to get choreographers and music director and uh the directing team aligned about what we're trying to achieve because there's so many cooks in the kitchen, you know, on a given moment in the show. Um so I would say the older I've gotten, the more um the more prep has been important to me and essential to me. Um and of course, you need to throw it all away once you're actually in the room with the human beings. Of course. It's it's not like you're gonna. I mean, sometimes you you you've the thinking has been um so solid and it aligns with the actors' impulses and you're, you know, but just as often the actors will take you in a completely different direction, or somebody else in the room who's observing and who'll say something takes you in a different direction. But the fact that you've thought through so many possibilities in advance just means you're better prepared. I mean, your your word preparation is exactly right. You know, you're better prepared to be an effective leader in the room, to listen better.

SPEAKER_00 28:21

Yeah. And when rehearsal is over, um what is the post-rehearsal process for you as well? Are you are you are you one to let it go and you you can go home and and uh be human being, or does director brain continue on for a while? And you know, do you need to take a walk afterwards? Like what is the we we again, like an actor, an actor has a warm-up, but we don't talk about a cool down. Is there a cool down process for you as well?

SPEAKER_01 28:54

Well, just by force of habit, the cooldown is often dealing with the emails of the day or the day job, you know? Yeah, yeah. Um, but I do like walking out of the room the moment the rehearsal ends always feels wrong. You know, some kind of processing, being able to thank people. Um, you know, usually the last ones in the room are the stage management team and the directing team, and just being able to express gratitude to hear what's on people's minds and hearts, and of course, planning for the next day, just in terms of what the schedule's gonna be. Um, and are we sticking to what we had sketched earlier or you know, are we going in a completely different direction? Um so that's all part of the cool down process. And then no, I think about it, you know, a lot. I dream about it, um, I wake up thinking about it. Um, so no, it's not an on-off um button at all.

SPEAKER_00 29:50

Are you the type of director that um has many things in the fire at the same time? Or are you I mean, obviously you you're thinking ahead, you've got plans being an artistic director, you have that. But are you solely in the thing that you're doing right now, or are you also taking meetings or other rehearsals for things? Can you split your focus in that way, or do you need to be solely uh dedicated to the thing at hand?

SPEAKER_01 30:20

Well, you know, they say multitasking is a myth and that it's not possible. Yeah. Um, but I I would say that I'm a pretty extreme multitasker. Um and um, you know, I'll be brushing my teeth, checking email, and peeing all at the same time at the risk of sharing too much information. Um so I I look, let me say this. I I referred to privilege earlier, and I'm so aware of how much privilege I've had in my life. So much privilege. I knew from when I was 18 years old to the pandemic starting in 2020, I never opened a play without knowing what I was directing next. And sometimes multiple, multiple projects, sometimes just the next one. But I always, you know, partly because I was an artistic director and we were planning what the next season would be and the season after that, and you know, or a show, I I would be lucky and have a show that I had done at the theater I was working at be picked up and going somewhere else. And I knew, okay, then we're gonna do that at Arena Stage, or we're gonna do that at Berkeley Rep. Um, so you know, incredible privilege and real joy that I always knew what was coming next um until the pandemic. And it was two things. It was the pandemic, which it was for all of us, but it was also that Pac and Russian was under construction. So I went almost five years, well, over four years, let's say, between four and five years, not directing anything for the first time in my life since I was 18. Um from uh, you know, kind of my wrapping up my uh commitments at uh Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Um we did uh The Great Society, which was a second LBJ play uh at Lincoln Center just before the pandemic that fall of 19. And then between that and Cat's Angelical Ball, um I was I started to work on it. I did start to get to do workshops, you know, but I wasn't in rehearsal for a production that was opening for almost five years. Um so I would say that yes, I'm thinking about the next projects um always, but I'm pretty obsessed on the current one. I'm I'm I'm I'm I I hope I'm very present for the thing that I'm doing in that moment. And that's that's where my primary energy is. But yeah, inevitably there's a design meeting or there's a some kind of deadline, there's a casting call that needs to be put out, whatever it is. And then you have to think about the project that's not the one you're working on. And that's look, that's a very happy burden, right? That's uh it's a burden, but it's a it's a joyful burden to have to think about more than one project at a time.

SPEAKER_00 33:05

Hal Prince said that he always scheduled the next, the next thing, the meeting for the next thing the day after opening night. So that he was never, so that he would he never had a day off. And I I feel that I was I was talking to my therapist this morning of saying, I just closed a show this weekend. And um, for the first time, I don't know when the next show I'm gonna direct is. Like I've I've had a pretty consistent 20-year period as well of saying, like, okay, I know the next one is six months away, eight months away, but now I don't I don't actually know, and that's scary and exhilarating at the same time to have that of going, like, well, then anything is possible.

SPEAKER_01 33:45

What's the show that you just closed out?

SPEAKER_00 33:47

Oh Lord. Uh Present Laughter, Noel Coward, um, which is not my typical fair. I had to, I had to step in for a director who had to step away for family reasons. And so um I was brought into the process where all design choices had been made, the world building had been done, and then my least favorite part, staging, was all that was left. And so um, but to but to make a room that make that room feel um comfortable is not the word, but what am I looking for? Um make love, bring love into that room, because it was a you know, to lose a director, to lose a director who, you know, had to go a step away for family health reasons and to not feel abandoned. Um that was what my focus was, which actually made the show better, just just having that love in the room. So um, but yeah, I I don't do comedies and I definitely don't do period comedies at that. So that was well, you just well, you just did, my friend.

SPEAKER_01 34:46

You just yeah, I know.

SPEAKER_00 34:47

I I don't I don't want to prove that to the world, but I guess I guess I I did I did it pretty well. I'm pretty happy with myself, and I never say that about my shows.

SPEAKER_01 34:53

Um I've I I have two things to say about that briefly. The book I'm currently reading, uh improbably, is a no coward biography called Masquerade. Really? Um I read very little per day because I just read a little bit before I fall asleep at night. So I've been taking a long time going through it, but it's been fascinating. Um, and you know, the times in my life where I've directed more of like an assigned project, either because somebody else assigned me or because I um assigned myself as an artistic director. Like somebody's got to do this particular Shakespeare. I guess it'll be me because I'm the artistic director. Um, there's a there's there's an interesting freedom in either inheriting something or being assigning yourself to something that's not a passion project. That it's it's a different, it's a different set of muscles to exercise.

SPEAKER_00 35:45

So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:46

Good on you, good on you for bringing love into that room. And uh I bet it was beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 35:52

Like I said, I I never say this about myself. I was really proud of the work. Because as you said, like I I never would have taken this job. I mean, I have said no to so many things because I'm not the right person. I I can point to you, I can give you the the name of the person who's the right person for this. And I never would have taken this on. Um and it was a real challenge, and uh I can do that. I don't know if I want to do that, but I I now realize that I can do that, which is really quite fascinating. Um congratulations. Thank you. Um you alluded, you you talked about uh cat's jellicobal, and I do want to get into this, but but you've also just raised something which I'd love to dig into as well. Um, what do you think that you're not great at? What would you what would you say? No, maybe that's not for me. You should, you know, ask somebody else. And not in a way of like, oh, like uh I shouldn't direct that, you know, for racial, gender reasons, whatever, sexual reasons. I'm just like like that's not for me. That's for that's somebody else's story to tell. But in terms of like what you recognize you're good at and what you recognize you're not so good at, or you're maybe even afraid of, like I said with the with the private uh Noel Coward, like what would be something that you would say, ooh, I shouldn't do that, which now means that you should do it.

SPEAKER_01 37:10

Yeah, I mean, really interesting. So when you started to ask the question, I was gonna start answering what I think my Achilles heels are in in a rehearsal process or in Mikko. So I can I can address that if that's interesting. Of course. In terms of like a genre, um, honestly, what my mind goes to immediately is um things where I, as a cisgendered white man of a certain age, um, feel like that's not my story to tell. But you know, Cast Angelica Ball should be at the top of that list for a cisgendered white man of a certain age. Um so I don't know if there is a I mean, it's given me so much joy to do all the new work I've done in my life, to do the musicals I've done, and uh to do plays that are uh yeah, of different uh genres, different, different uh styles. So I I think I don't instinctively I think where my brain goes to is is what are my uh what are the traps that I fall into. And um so is it okay if I answer that question instantly?

SPEAKER_00 38:18

Please do. No, that's a that's a great that's a great question to answer.

SPEAKER_01 38:22

I would say that I um can be too literal in my thinking. And I think that the um quest, the quest for specificity is something that I hopefully bring to the table in a really useful way, but it can sometimes I can get stuck in an eddy of um something that's too literal. Or, you know, uh somebody said once to me, every table doesn't have to have four legs. And that saying is always stuck with me, you know, because I do get in the mindset of it's a table, it has to have four legs, you know. Um uh but that's why I love theater. It's why I love collaborating, because when somebody then challenges, I think you're being too literal. I think you're getting stuck on this particular possibility, and it doesn't have to be that. It could be something else. You know, when I hear the truth in that, I go, oh, you're absolutely right. I can see it, you know, and I and then I'm grateful. Um, you know, I do a little beating up on myself, like, oh, Bill, why did you have to think so literally? Why do you have to be so, you know, but I I do feel like I've developed over the years the ability to let go um when I when my brain is stuck on a certain solution. Um and I would say that it's 95% a good quality, but I'm very, very anal about time. Very, very um I I I one of my favorite things to do is make a rehearsal schedule. Um, when I have a new project that's coming, I love to look at how many days we have, how many weeks we have, and just begin to sketch how that work can be created in that amount of time. And so a little bit that can be a liability, right? In terms of getting to, you know, my co-director Jalen Lovingston, the brilliant brilliant brilliant Jalen Lovingston, had a um much more fluid approach to time than I did on Cast Angelical Ball. And I would say that we really it was a great reason we co-directed, because I think the ways in which I would be um uptight about time served us, and the ways in which he would be like, there's something more important right now than that thing that we planned um really served the process also. And it was the balance, you know, that I think was part of the success of the process.

SPEAKER_00 40:49

And you've just opened Cast Jellico Ball. Um, and congratulations on that. I can't wait to see it. I've not been able to get up to the city yet, but um later this month I'll be there. Um please, please let me know what you think after you've seen it. I would love to. I've been I've been looking forward to this since uh what it was was it done last year or the year before? The summer of 24. Yeah. I remember hearing about I remember hearing about that and thinking, and I'll be completely honest with you, I'm not a musical theater person. There are certain musical theater pieces that I really truly enjoy, the ones with a really strong book and a really strong story. And I always thought Katz was, as I'm sure you've heard from lots of people, Katz has a certain uh uh feeling to certain people. But when I heard this concept, I thought, well, yes, of course, it makes total sense. But of course, nobody thought of that before the moment that you know you thought of that. Um so I'm very much looking forward to it. Um what excited you about that idea when, as you said, probably in in the pandemic, you were um just starting to think about it. What excited you about it enough to then say, like, we got to clear this with uh the estate? We gotta clear out the the the long-standing idea in everybody's head of what this show is. Um I really want to push this community forward. Uh and to be now here celebrated, doing a beautiful production. Um, what's excited you about this the entire time?

SPEAKER_01 42:34

Thank you for calling it beautiful. Let's wait till you see it, and then we'll talk about what you really think. Um, but I um yeah, look, I I can't believe that we've talked as long as we have this morning. And uh my husband has not come up yet. Um, my husband of what will soon be 42 years. Congratulations. Thank you. I'm aging myself in front of your eyes. Um we are college sweethearts. Oh. Um I thought that cats came in my mind sometime in relation to the queer Oklahoma that I directed at Oregon Shakespeare Festival, which was in 2018. Um, Lori and Curly were two women, Ado Andy and Will were two men, and uh Ann Ella uh is a trans woman uh in that production. And so I thought cats kind of developed kind of alongside that, in the wake of that. And my husband said, no, no, no, you've talked about cats in a queer context for 30 years. And I uh made the foolish mistake of thinking that he was wrong, um, although he's never wrong. Right. And uh a friend from LA, uh uh a uh director that I knew in LA came to see it downtown and wrote me an email and said, I'm so happy that you were able to do this because of course you were talking to me about this 30 years ago.

SPEAKER_00 43:52

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 43:53

So yes, one of the morals of the story is that my husband's always right. But the but uh the fact is I did think about it and I thought about it in a queer context. I thought about Grizabella being an older gay man in a gay bar. And I just thought the way that that the song Memory fetishizes youth and beauty and the kind of melancholy of a later point in life, I just thought that would be very moving. It's just the idea of it moved me as a gay man myself. And uh so that was really the seed. And then during the pandemic, um, interestingly, as we talk about institutions and our relationship to institutions, it was a board member at Pac NYC. I showed him the programming that I was thinking about for our inaugural season. And he said, Well, to my, you know, it looks good, but I feel like you're missing two things. You're missing a show directed by Bill Roush as our new artistic director. And uh you're missing a familiar title because audiences should just have at least one title they've heard of before. And I said, Well, I do have an idea, but we will never get the rights. Um and then when I picked up the text and read the libretto, because I didn't know cats that well, I had only seen it once, and I read the libretto and I realized it's not a bar, it's a ball. It is absolutely a ball, as in Paris is burning, pose, etc. Queer, black and brown, Harlem-based movement. That's what this is. It's it's very clear in the text. Um, and I began to work with a brilliant gender consultant named Josie Cartons and a ballroom icon, a choreographer uh named Omari Wiles. And the three of us during the pandemic uh had weekly sessions on Zoom, and we just began to uh dream of it. So, you know, there's that then, of course, a long uh journey in terms of trying to get the rights from Andrew Ludweber's team and Andrew himself and uh Jalen entering the picture as co-director, and you know, lots lots of uh twists and turns on the road.

SPEAKER_00 46:07

What excited you throughout this entire process? And it's very clear, like it was it was subconsciously a seed for 30 years, 30 plus years.

SPEAKER_01 46:14

So to finally push that through, it's uh amazing to you know, we talked about Cornerstone earlier, and I will say that I had not really thought about the show as much in this context, but at opening night at Pac NYC, one of my oldest and dearest friends turned to me with tears in his eyes and said, It's the most cornerstone thing you've made since Cornerstone. And I do feel that um it's a very cornerstone project. You know, people from the ballroom community and musical theater artists trying to make something together, everybody's life experience and um talents being uh recognized with equal respect. Uh, the fact that ballroom folks had an expertise in their community that had a weight, and that then the musical theater icons, including Andre de Shields, uh had a certain authority in terms of how theater works, and that somehow not always easy, but uh tr creating a community of trust and mutual respect. So that's part of why it's given me so much joy, this project. So much joy.

SPEAKER_00 47:31

I was gonna say that um from everything that I know about your work and where you started and and what you talked about before, of your your personal why, it is full of community. It is full of inclusion. And it's, you know, I can totally see how this excuse me would be seen as an extension of a cornerstone project. I mean, that in that embeddedness of that. Um, from everybody that I have spoken to who has seen it, which again, I get I'll I'll go up later this month, um, has said that it is it there are there are plays where I'm gonna go watch a play, and then there are plays wherein I'm going to be a part of a theatrical event. I am going to a night of the theater. And that everyone has said that has filled that thing of like nobody wants to leave when they when they're that like the show is over and they just want to go out into the street and just party. Like the dance will continue on.

SPEAKER_01 48:25

Um so beautiful to hear you say that. I have a I have a very important question for you, Adam. Yes. If the show disappoints you and you don't have that experience, are you going to erase our podcast?

SPEAKER_00 48:37

No, never. Pretend that it never happened. Never, never, never. No. I I am the type of person that I will uh I will speak respectfully and openly with everybody about how I feel about a thing. Because I because it's it's not this is a difficulty I know that we have of like, I am not the artwork. I make the work of art. So there's a there's a hard time of of dis distancing ourselves from that thing. But I love theater, all theater. I'll give you an example. I hated the work of Richard Foreman, but I would go and see it every single time I was in the city. Every single time he had a show, I was there. And it it bothered me to no end, just you know, the way that he was making work, how he was working with actors. But I also had the most amazing dreams every single night when I went to see one of his shows. I would I would lucid dream when he would do something. So I couldn't discount that he was he was on to something. It just wasn't my cup of tea. But I would tell all of my students, go see Richard Foreman's work. He's doing something that's insane and crazy, and I can't describe it. It's not my cup of tea, but I will always go and see it. So I if if I don't like it, which I don't think is gonna be the case, I would speak as as to why I don't like it. But I would recognize that so many people love it and it's necessary for them. But like I said, I don't think this is gonna be the case. I think I think the the cats that originated on Broadway, I would feel that way, but I feel like you've cracked something here. I love recontextualizing things and and making them necessary to an audience today. Who is who are you making it for? Why are you doing it now? And I think that answers that question, whereas so many of these plays that don't get a revival, or like your Oklahoma or Daniel Fish's Oklahoma that recontextualizes and says, why now? Why these why this story now? Um I don't like going to theater as a museum piece where it's just kind of stuck. Um and so coming into coming into something like this that says, Oh, no, we've answered why now, why here, why these people. Um, it really that's that's that's my raison d'être. That's like that's what I want to do with theater. So I would absolutely um speak honestly to that. But I like I said, I don't think that's gonna be the case.

SPEAKER_01 50:56

I I love by the way, um I love that your whole framing about liking it may not be the issue. How is it a significant event? Is it is is something happening in the room, um whether you like it or not. And that that's that's a beautiful framing. I just wanted to say very briefly that I I talked about uh the idea of the bar becoming the ballroom. What I didn't talk about is Grisabella going from being an older gay man to being a trans woman, and that was a vital part of the process. And certainly Josie Kearns gets huge props for her crystal clarity that Grizabella was, of course, a trans woman. And you know, she was absolutely right. And uh, you know, it's inconceivable to me now um that Grizabella might never have been a trans woman. Um so I just wanted to say that for the record.

SPEAKER_00 51:51

No, that's that's perfect, it's great. Um what do you hope the field has learned from your work? What do you think what do you hope? I mean, it's like turning a ship, it's never going to go in that direction. But what do you hope the needle has shifted to in your time in theater? Where do you hope it's going, or where do you hope to continue to push it?

SPEAKER_01 52:18

Yeah, I feel like those are all different questions. Um and um I feel like I can't be presumptuous to talk about any influence that I've had.

SPEAKER_00 52:29

Um, come on now. You you you know, you have to know. Maybe you don't want to speak about it. I understand.

SPEAKER_01 52:37

I I I will say this. I do think that Cornerstone over its 40 years um has been a really useful uh uh provocateur, but that's not the the word I I meant to use. But Cornerstone has provoked questions about who is an artist, um, what should be the foundation of a work of theater, um, and what is our responsibility to um the most marginalized members of our communities and the most marginalized members of our society. And I I think Cornerstone has been really useful in the field um for that. And I'm really, really proud that I was the founding artistic director and that I was there to help pose those questions early on. Um, I do think that, you know, that my years at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, those 12 years, um I I'm I'm grateful that I was part of a company that really dug into questions of inclusion at that scale, you know, that it was a uh roughly a 75-year-old company when I when I started there. And um for an organization at that at that scale in terms of its history, its longevity, it's its budget size, um, the number of artists, you know, by many measures, the largest acting company in the country uh for uh those years that I was there, um that we were able to prioritize uh inclusion uh so successfully, you know. The acting company when I arrived was 20% actors of color. By the time I left, it was 70% actors of color. Um and I do think that that um was useful in terms of an example for the field. Um and uh I'm I'm really proud of all the new work we did. Um, you know, a Shakespeare festival doing uh classic musicals as as being uh an appropriate part of the canon and the new work that we did that was inspired by kind of the spirit of Shakespeare's work in terms of civic engagement, you know, our U.S. history cycle. Um so I'm I'm I'm proud to have been part of all of that. And now at Pac NYC, you know, for me, the great passion at Pac NYC is um, you know, if you think of my career as a three-act play, um uh, you know, if if Act One was cornerstone and was about really identifying an audience and then kind of rigorously handmaking a work of art for that audience. And then you use the battleship metaphor. If Oregon Shakespeare Festival was a giant, you know, regional theater ship, it was about trying to turn that ship in some new directions, um, uh and a very audience-centered ship, you know, um uh historically and to this day, then I feel like this kind of act three at Pac NYC is can we do work that is for very specific communities in terms of audience, um that is on a scale of and um with the artistic kind of rigor and um you used the word professionalism earlier, you know. I'll I'll I'll throw in professionalism. Um, can somehow what we tried to do at OSF and what we tried to do at Cornerstone be combined? And in this um one of the most diverse cities in the world, can we bring people together at a place on the lower tip of Manhattan that was a trading place for indigenous communities? That that that the campus dares to call itself the World Trade Center. You know, can can we bring people together in surprising combinations at that location on this island that has seen over 400 years of trauma and over 400 years of resilience? So I'm I'm trying to be part of that dialogue right now. And in a way, it's related to everything I've ever tried to do, but it's a different um form of it. How about that?

SPEAKER_00 57:05

I see that too. No, I love that's great. I see that. I totally see that. I was I was sitting there thinking, like, well, I hope it's not a three-act play. I hope we're a Shakespeare, four acts, five acts. But I also don't I also don't want you to think about leaving someplace already, you know. But yes, we we want a long and storied career for Bill Ross. Oh, bless you.

SPEAKER_01 57:22

My my suspicion is that this is Act Three as an artistic director. I hope there's a chapter someday uh uh beyond being Pacinois's artistic director. But meanwhile, I am very, very grateful to be there, and there's a lot of work we got to do there.

SPEAKER_00 57:36

So that's two questions at the end of the podcast. Uh this is this was given to me by one of my students um in between class, and the subtlety of this this it has stayed with me and really kind of rocked me. Um she asked, uh, what is a show that changed you as a human being? Not as an artist. But there was there was a Bill Roush before you had the show before you saw the show, and there was a Bill Roush afterwards. There was something fundamentally shifted inside of you as human being, as your nature. Can you think of of that production or think of productions that have done that for you?

SPEAKER_01 58:18

Well, two things came to my mind immediately. So, in the spirit of uh uh colleagues and friends talking over a meal as as you framed this this this conversation, which I love. Um I I will say the first thing I thought of was seeing the Worcester Group's LSD, just the high points. But when I was uh uh uh the summer, I think it was the summer before, I know it was the summer before my senior year of college. And but honestly, that shaped me as an artist. Um, because the lessons that I took away were, first of all, like extreme artistic risk taking was worth it. And that only a certain level of excellence could be achieved. Here I am using the excellence word now after saying it's but a a certain level of precision, of acting and direction could be best conceived through a company setting. That these people work together as an ensemble. And actually, I went back to Harvard where I was a student, and I founded a theater company my last semester at school. And we didn't have auditions, I just invited people to work with me, and we did a whole bunch of work for that last semester. And that was completely inspired by um by LSD and the work of the work of the Worcester Group. Um I would say personally, when you when you sharpened that question and I understood better what you meant, um, as a person, the first thing that came to mind was sitting with my parents as part of a church group, going to see a chorus line on Broadway and having uh the gay character have that confessional monologue and sitting with my mommy and my daddy at I think I was 12 maybe, and knowing in some way that that was me, but that they must never ever know that was me. And I feel like right on through uh getting me emotional today about this, uh right on through the queer joy that fills the Broadhurst Theater right now for Castanchel Cobalt. I feel like sitting with my parents uh in that production of a chorus sign was part of that journey. Was the beginning of that journey?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:47

Got me emotional about that as well. That's beautiful. Um beautiful question, my friend. Well, thank you, Emma Hart, for that question. Um like I said, it's a such a subtle question. You don't you don't realize it until like, oh, that digs deep when I actually have to think about what it means to be a human being watching a show and how it changed, it shifted something inside of me. Um okay, well, last question, not so, not so deep, hopefully. Um who are directors that you think need more notice? Who do you wish that we knew more about the work? I mean, you you you mentioned your your co-director, Jalen, um, who I think is also brilliant. Um, it is it it's not about who is the best because it's not about picking that. That's not, but like who do you wish was getting more notice, more work, more attention to the work that they're doing? Who basically who is exciting you right now?

SPEAKER_01 1:01:51

I so appreciate that question, and I think I may um not answer it in the way it's intended. Um because I feel a little bit, I'm a parent, and I feel a little bit like it's asking a parent who's your favorite kid. Um, there's so many artists that I uh love and respect, and I think deserve more um yeah, just more notice. Um absolutely. So many of the people I got to work with at Oregon Shakespeare Festival, so many of the people that I've um been working with at Pac NYC. Um, I will just say about Jalen that I try to learn from whoever I'm working with every day that I am lucky enough to collaborate with somebody. The concentration of learning that I did every day from Jalen Livingston is it's just so undiluted and pure and intense. And the fact that we are of very different generations, he was 29 when we made Castrogelico Ball the first time. I talking to you today, I'm 63. I think I was 61 then. Um and, you know, not that we think age necessarily correlates to wisdom, but the the amount of learning that I did from that artist, um, I cannot even put into words. So I will reinforce Shaylin. Um I'll I'll I'll I'll throw out one more name too, just for fun, although not somebody who needs a career boost in any way, shape, or form, but Che Yu. Um Che uh was writing a play for Cornerstone in Chinatown um many years ago, and uh it was 1997, I believe. And uh I was supposed to be directing it, and I had to drop out because I had another Cornerstone project that conflicted, and uh Che said, Will you give me a chance and let me direct it? And uh he directed it beautifully, and then he directed in my first and my last seasons at Oregon Shakespeare Festival, um, and then he directed Huang Rou and David Henry Huang's beautiful opera in American Soldier uh at Pac and Oisea. So that is an artist who has been um uh throughout my career. And I will say probably my deepest answer is my husband, Chris, who is an astonishing director and an astonishing actor. And people who've experienced his work know how gifted he is. And uh I just want always more people in the world to know about Chris Moore as a director as well as as an actor. So I did have some answers. Look at that.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:37

There you did, exactly. And these are all people I'm gonna have on the I'm gonna try and have on the podcast as well. So these are these are great answers. Um I spent I spent 10 years in Singapore, so uh I I very much um have been wanting to have Cheyu on as well um to talk about He's so funny.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:54

He's so funny, and uh uh his wit is very caustic, and uh he's so smart and uh yeah, ruck on.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:05

Bill, thank you so much for randomly taking an email and uh setting up with all of all of the help being here today, jumping on this podcast and and having this great conversation with me. Like I said before, um you have been in my mind, and your work has been subtly influencing so many of the artists that I have worked with, um, and not so subtly influencing me. And I cannot thank you enough for being on here and then saying that you'd come back on again at some point if I if I wanted to bring you back on again. And um, putting some things into the universe and uh just being a really good human being, which then makes your work even better. So thank you for joining me today.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:51

I can say with no exaggeration and total honesty that this is one of the richest and most meaningful. Conversations I've ever had with somebody that I was meeting for the first time. And uh what you do is beautiful, you're very, very good at it. Uh, I'm sure that's true of you as an artist as well. That I haven't experienced yet, but I I feel like I have actually. I feel like I've just been hanging out with a fellow artist and having a having a deep conversation. So uh thank you. Thank you for inviting me.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:24

If this episode gave you any insight, inspiration, or even just made you smile, please subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts for more conversations like this. And if you're looking for guidance with a creative challenge or want to advance a dream of your own, we'd love to help. Visit Board of Directors.world. The Board of Directors is a global constellation of theater directors dedicated to building community, sharing knowledge, and transforming the role of the director in the 21st century. We convene and curate a fellowship that fosters mentorship, artistic inquiry, and collective care, transcending borders and institutions and traditions. Until then, take care of yourself and take care of each other.