Jeffrey T. Heyer and Nina Capriola - THE LION IN WINTER
“We were tired of waiting for people to produce what we wanted to do. We decided to try self producing.” That’s how founding producer Nina Capriola last month explained the birth of a new local venture in cutting edge, co-op theatre known as Actors’ Collective.
“We wanted to do the kind of things the bigger houses can’t afford to risk doing,” she said, “things that don’t necessarily have the broadest audience appeal but are well written and mean something. . . “We’ve kept our tickets very low, so we’re getting an audience. And when you’re giving the money away like that, it just changes the content of your work.”
In a group that shifts and adjusts with changing material and venues, the Collective now numbers in its company names like Jeff Heyer, Jill Jackson, Deirdre McCauley, Chris Anderson, Thomas Burks, Patrice Parks, Michelle Vallentyn and Charles Croslin. A lot of the members are long-standing friends, and this adds what Nina calls a “comfortability factor. . .Jeff Heyer and I met at the Valley Institute of Theatre Arts (VITA) and have been friends ever since, working in a number of companies together. You don’t usually get that on the repertory circuit. You’re hired to work with whoever you’re hired to work with.”
The Collective’s first venture was THE LION IN WINTER in January, 2006. “It’s a play that fits the kind of material we want to do. We did it at Pac Rep Circle Theatre as a benefit, and it went well and we were able to raise some money for Colleagues for the Arts.
“Often I will both produce and direct. Producing is a new experience for me and I really like it. I can’t say I’m a control freak, but I seem to know how to see that what needs to get done gets done.
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Because they’re all people with non-theatre jobs, (“I’m a landscape designer and that’s how I make money”) rehearsals have to fit into open spaces in everybody’s non-theatre timetable. That has meant that Actors’ Collective material has tended toward programs of one-acts and literary excerpts. A show at the Carl Cherry Center featured episodes from “The Twilight Zone.” We called our show "THIS AIN’T THE OUTER LIMITS." Another, a benefit for the SPCA called “NOSES AND EARS,” consisted of shorts having to do with animals by people like David Sedaris and Shel Silverstein and an excerpt from from A.R. Gurney’s SYLVIA. Silverstein did a return engagement with an Actors’ Collective evening of his adult pieces at Monterey Live on Pacific Avenue. “That was a new venue for us - but the material really suited a bar, so it was a good experience.”
Nina Capriola started her stage career as a trainee dancer, but she soon discovered that being in a theatre was an exciting natural progression into acting and production. "I also figured I would be able to do that longer than dancing.” She was a student at MPC during the Morgan Stock era and then did apprenticeship programs in Saratoga at the Valley Institute of Theatre Arts (VITA) and at Theatre Rhinoceros in San Francisco assisting Leland Moss, founding member of La Mama in New York. Nina assisted him in several shows during the early 80s, including "The AIDS Show." She then went on into the risk and challenge of Bay Area professional theatre.
“That was hard enough - but here on this peninsula? Well, there’s about ten people who make money out of theatre. The rest of us, who don’t, need to do innovative work or else get out of the house.” That kind of work more and more moves Nina Capriola off stage and into the director’s chair. For her, trying to direct and act in the same show doesn’t work well. “It splits focus for me. Acting takes a certain concentration that gets unnerved if you’re trying to direct at the same time. . . My time is better spent overseeing the whole project.”
In a reaction that at first sounded surprising and then appropriate, she’s proud that Actors’ Collective just cancelled an October booking at the Carl Cherry Center. “We realized we did not have the time to do it to the level we needed to, and I felt really good about that. What we do in Actors’ Collective has to be good. It may be that you don’t like the choices being made, but what we put out has to have integrity and high quality.”
When it comes to the Monterey Peninsula theatre scene, she sees isolated signs of hope but big room for improvement. “We’ve become a sound bite society. Our minds are wrapped around TV as the only entertainment medium, and that’s a problem. The only thing I know to do about that is to find really creative ways to work within that medium.
“Then, to, I would like to see a whole lot more ‘community’ within the theatre community. As it is now, you have the same shows being done within a few month’s time and fifteen or twenty miles distance of each other. That’s ridiculous, and what is that saying about our audience? I think artists have a responsibility to find the truth in this mess, whatever it is, and I don’t think that’s happening.
“Oh, there are some good things going on. I just saw MACBETH at PRT, and although I understand it didn’t get great reviews (I didn’t read them, but I’m told it didn’t) well, I loved the innovation in it; it was risky and cool, and if I didn’t agree 100 per cent, well, I think I agreed with about 85 per cent of the choices. And I'm looking forward to seeing Western Stage's THREEPENNY OPERA."
She’s excited too about her next Actors' Collective venture, an adaptation of Bram Stoker’s DRACULA by Jeff Heyer, who first played the vampire count when he was a schoolboy. “Jeff and I just had breakfast together, and we talked about it. We’re going to workshop it. Our main concern is with the book: what’s on the page is what matters. Now we’re concentrating on firming up the script and getting as many tricks as we can. Small cast - probably ten to twelve.
“It takes a special kind of person to work this way. We’re always on the lookout for the next thing. We’re trying to incorporate younger artists, to use some new media, film work, the technology that these younger artists are being schooled in.
“On our last show, I was looking around at who was playing with us, and there wasn’t a single person there who I knew wouldn’t move a chair or sweep up or help out in any way that was called for. There’s a noticeable lack of ego. Everyone is on an even playing field.”