Vivienne Benesch’s PlayMakers

Vivienne Benesch’s presentation on PlayMakers, September 15, 2022

Such Stuff As Dreams Are Made On
Vivienne Benesch

Remarks for the UNC Retired Faculty Association, September 15, 2022

Hello everyone, and thank you for welcoming me here and for the opportunity to spend some
time with you talking about the work of PlayMakers Repertory Company. It’s a great privilege,
and I’m excited to share some of my dreams with you.
When Pete Andrews asked me for a title for this talk this past summer, I knew I wanted to
speak about dreaming, as I believe the theatre operates in the world of dreams; and I tried hard
to find something from Hamlet, as I’m directing that this season. But the Hamlet quotes about
dreaming are a little somber for the subject of a speech: “Oh God I could be bounded in a
nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space— were it not that I have bad dreams.” “A
dream itself is but a shadow” And of course: “To sleep, perchance to dream— ay there’s the
rub.” Maybe not today.
Instead, I allowed myself to travel seven years later in Shakespeare’s play chronology and
borrow from that ultimate artist-conjurer, Prospero: “Such stuff as dreams are made on.”

Many of you might be quite familiar with PlayMakers Repertory Company and its relationship
to the University, the Triangle community and the larger ecosystem of professional theater.
However, I continue to think it’s important to spend some time illuminating this very particular
relationship that makes us uniquely positioned in the field.
UNC is known for so many things – basketball, of course, a host of great departments, several
Nobel laureates, a top-tier medical school – but few people know that the University boasts the
second oldest department of drama in the nation, established just after Carnegie Mellon’s –
and as we are so very fond of bragging, just before Harvard’s. In fact, in 1850, Carolina was the
first public university in the country to have a building dedicated to theatre – and that is the
Historic Playmakers building near Memorial Hall, originally called Smith Hall.
But over one hundred years ago, a man named Frederick Henry Koch – “Prof Koch” to his
friends and students – was brought to Carolina by way of Peoria, Illinois and the University of
North Dakota, where he had developed an idea of “folk theatre” that he hoped would someday
produce an American Shakespeare. His “folk theatre” meant slow years of amateur theatrical
experimentation in which every local tradesman could take part, producing plays based on the
lives of real, ordinary people, performed by those people, rooted in place and shaped by their
background.
Before Prof Koch arrived, theater was apparently in such a bad way in our state that the play
publishing and licensing agency Samuel French had literally crossed North Carolina off its list of
prospective patrons. But UNC President Edward Kidder Graham had observed Koch from afar
and thought that his ideas about folk drama rooted in the people and their heritage could
promote unity across class lines here in North Carolina. His hope was that this might
demonstrate to a national audience that North Carolina was a progressive, enlightened state,
rich in the arts and culture.
In 1918, Koch established the Carolina Playmakers—a talented “town and gown” troupe of
amateur and academic actors, writers, and theatre enthusiasts – along with students such as
Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Paul Green and author Thomas Wolfe, whose name now
graces our largest theatre. The Carolina Playmakers performed their folk plays at Historic
Playmakers Theatre and at the open-air Forest Theatre, still across the street from us today. But
the Playmakers also organized theatre festivals around Chapel Hill, and went on to tour their
productions statewide, embarking on twenty-one tours over the course of ten years.
Incredible.
While that program ended over 50 years ago, one of my own first dreams for PlayMakers was
to answer Prof Koch’s call to bring our stories to the people, turning our gaze to engage our
community outside just our theatre walls. We launched PlayMakers Mobile. This program
brings a streamlined, inventive, relatively bare bones version of a play to community centers,
Title One schools, libraries throughout the area, and non-traditional spaces on and around the
UNC Campus – absolutely free!
Thanks to the generosity of our annual fund donors and the hard work of our artistic office, the
program grew from being a small, adjunct project that was mostly a labor of love, to a highly
anticipated, richly-rewarding exchange between our company and our community. While the
pandemic required that we put this program on pause over the last few seasons, I am so
pleased to share that PlayMakers Mobile will once again hit the road in the new year, building
upon the relationships we established during the program’s nascency. In fact, our graduate
acting students practically demanded that we produce the Mobile Tour again this year, as it
presents them not only with valuable experience in work that they deeply value, but also work
that is becoming a large part of the professional landscape they will enter upon graduation.
While we are still discussing possible titles for this year’s project, what’s most important is that
the play serve as a means toward meaningful dialogue. Gone are the days of transactional
artistic relationships: you buy your ticket, you watch our work, you go home. In order to remain
relevant and essential to the communities in which we reside, arts organizations must leverage
our assets to serve a vital function within communities that encompasses entertainment but
leads to other important goals such as deeper compassion, humanity, and empathy. Tied so
meaningfully to the University, PlayMakers’ specific role is to connect the profound scholarship
of the academy with our community through the lens of our art.
In the mid-1970s, during the burgeoning development of the regional theater movement in
America – led by, among others, my own mentor Zelda Fichandler, who founded D.C.’s Arena
Stage – two prestigious men of the theatre, Arthur Houseman and Tom Haas, came together
here in Chapel Hill to create that very important bridge between art and scholarship. The Department of Dramatic Art had grown to the point where it was attracting professionals at the
top of their fields to lead and teach in its three MFA programs, but it was clear that productions
of the Carolina Playmakers needed to reflect this high quality, too. So, in 1976, with Tom Haas
at the helm, PlayMakers Repertory Company officially opened its first professional season as a
member of the League of Resident Theaters, an organization representing the highest standard
of non-profit theatrical excellence nationwide.
Six artistic directors and one inimitable Millie Barringer – who was both Department Chair and
Artistic Producer – have since stewarded PlayMakers into the nationally recognized theatre that
it is today. In forty-six years, more than a thousand performers have graced our stages’ nearly
300 productions for over two million audience members, with over 160 directors and 400
designers.
PlayMakers is one of the very last resident theatre companies still operating in the nation. We
boast not only a faculty and staff of professional resident actors, designers, artisans and
scholars, but alongside it, a company of emerging talent from those three graduate programs:
the Professional Actor Training Program, the Technical Production program and the Costume
Production program. These students learn first-hand as they play a part in bringing all our
shows to life, under the guidance of and in collaboration with our resident and other renowned
professionals. This old-fashioned-made-new-again “apprentice” program has enabled
PlayMakers to become a great “teaching hospital” for professional theatre artists – also one of
the few of its kind in the country.
PlayMakers is a busy place! While most faculty at UNC balance their research, teaching and
administrative duties, many of PlayMakers’ resident company spend their time teaching all
morning, move into rehearsal or head to the shops during the afternoon, and often perform or
run a show at night. And for up to 9 weeks a year we are in tech: intense technical rehearsals in
which we put all the elements of a show together. These used to run from noon to midnight,
but now in a new era where we attempt a better work-life balance, we only go from noon to 10
p.m. That’s maybe a subject for a different talk, about the evolution of “sacrificing for our
art.” But I’m happy to report that what remains true is that we believe that “creativity lives at
PlayMakers” – and we recognize that we are lucky to get to do what we love.
One of my ongoing dreams is to create more and different opportunities for our patrons to
interact with the wildly creative people who envision the shows we put on stage. We are
continually looking for opportunities for them to share their reflections on how a production
came to be, the original impulses behind the design elements, and the sometimes-maddening
but enlightening changes that come about during tech rehearsals and preview performances.
For many years we offered a series of events called The Vision Series that presented live
conversations for audiences to engage with our artists before a preview performance. One of
the lessons we are taking forward with us from the pandemic is how our recorded and virtual
work can really make a difference in who can access our work: both educationally throughout
the state, and for people who cannot make it to the theatre for a variety of reasons. Hence, we
are transitioning these conversations online, so we can share the vision in short, consumable mini documentaries that can then be used in a variety of settings: in the community, in the
classroom, but most importantly to tell our story as broadly as possible. The first of these is
being developed with our upcoming production of Native Gardens, and they will be an ongoing
project for the season.
We continue to offer post-show conversations that position our plays through the lens of the
present, whether the show was written in 1622 or 2022. These conversations bring together
the rich scholarly resource of the University and the Triangle community with artists involved in
a given production, to take a deep dive into a particular theme or issue raised in our plays. The
conversations can range from the play and playwright’s history to the present-tense sociopolitical,
cultural or personal context, all meant to deepen an audience’s experience of the
show.
For our upcoming production of Native Gardens, we’ve built new partnerships with the North
Carolina Botanical Gardens, the Carolina Latinx Center and the American Indian Center to
explore some of the deeper themes raised in Zacarías’ play. Working with these campus
organizations, we’re looking at the Landback movement, the Latinx/Indigenous relationship to
the land and to the United States specifically. We’re exploring the landscape and plants native
to North Carolina, and we’re going to host a fabulous Opening Night celebration featuring
plant-based, Indigenous and Latinx inspired cuisine. The beautiful opportunity that these
relationships present is one that celebrates some of the amazing work happening on campus,
and it makes a direct link to our students. The Opening Night celebration happens to coincide
with both Indigenous Peoples Day and a campus celebration of Carnaval, and we’re hopeful
that the play’s bristling satire will fit in nicely with the energy of the week. It also happens to
feature a spectacular quartet of actors: faculty company favorites Jeff Cornell and Julia Gibson
and returning guest artists Sarita Ocon and Alejandro Rodriguez. This also happens to be — and
I was shocked to discover this— the first Latinx or Hispanic playwright to be produced on our
mainstage!
For as long and wonderfully storied a history as PlayMakers has, it’s always possible — and
necessary — that our dreams will wrestle with our past as much as they will imagine a better
future. A new and truly exciting initiative on which PlayMakers will embark this season – and
one which was recently awarded a “Spark the Arts” grant from the North Carolina Arts Council
– combines two of PlayMakers’ core priorities: developing new work and engaging our work
with communities. We developed the idea by posing a series of questions: If we deeply center
community members over the course of an extended period, and give them unparalleled access
to the process of developing new work, how will it impact the audience member’s view of
themselves as a stakeholder with the artistic product? With our theatre? Does the artistic work
have a more meaningful impact on the lives of our community partners? These are some of the
questions we are hoping to answer. We are calling this initiative “radical inclusion.”
So this season, we will produce the world premiere of Professional Actor Training Program
alumnus Tristan André’s multimedia/dance/theatre piece, They Do Not Know Harlem: In
Communion with James Baldwin. The play centers on how Baldwin’s life and work shaped Tristan’s
own sense of identity and creative practice. Directed by company member Kathy
Williams (who is also the new Chair of the Department of Dramatic Art), this piece with deep
roots in the Triangle will begin work in October with a week-long workshop residency. With a
goal of creating a deeper and more meaningful connection to the African American community
in Durham, North Carolina, our intention is to bring community partners into the process from
this very early moment in development. We are partnering with Pierce Freelon and NorthStar
Church of the Arts to host a meal in the community and to introduce Tristan and his
collaborators. Community members will be welcome to visit and observe the workshop
process, and a final showing will be presented at NorthStar at the end of the week. In the
spring, when we give the piece its world premiere, we will provide transportation for
community members to travel to PlayMakers to attend a first rehearsal, tech and performances
and participate in community meals with the artists, and a culminating celebration of the
artist/community partnership. This level of connection to the developmental process of theatre
is unparalleled in our field. It’s a grand experiment, but one that we think will radically shift the
script between community and arts institutions.
As I mentioned, the development of new work has been a hallmark of my tenure at PlayMakers.
It’s in my blood. At Chautauqua, where I was artistic director of the theatre company for 12
summers before coming here, I started the New Play Workshop, which brought two to four new
plays each summer that spoke in some way to the thematic programming of the larger
Chautauqua Institution’s weekly themes. That was a dream that flourished, and before I left, no
small number of those plays went on to productions Off Broadway and across the country.
I wanted to find a way for that dream to take root here at PlayMakers. My predecessor, Joseph
Haj, had developed PlayMakers’ incredibly successful conversation-starting Second Stage series
– PRC2 – and for over ten seasons it brought a host of topical, one-act plays to PlayMakers,
always followed by a “second act” of lively conversation between the artists, expert panelists,
and the audience. Under Joe’s tenure, PRC2 largely featured presented work: plays that had
been developed and produced before, which then made a stop at PlayMakers. PRC2 was a way
to champion new artists who take risks, and it proved that new work was viable at PlayMakers
and provided a wonderful invitation for the direction in which I would begin to steer us after my
arrival in 2016.
When I took the helm of the theatre, PRC2 became more like a development platform for new
work, also expanding the boundaries of what we understand theatre to be. Those of you who
were able to see Draw the Circle, Temples of Lung and Air, Bewilderness, Count, or No Fear and
Blues Long Gone during their short time at PlayMakers know exactly how electric these new
plays can be.
Now in my seventh season at PlayMakers, I have decided to direct resources toward the
formalization of a new play development initiative called @Play. These workshops, readings,
and productions will take place in both of our spaces: Tristan’s Harlem is very much a part of
this work. And we have many more titles in the development pipeline, including a number of
commissions: for instance, an adaptation of Aristophanes’ Lysistrata by UNC Alumna Bekah Brunstetter
and a wildly fun, Triangle-focused holiday extravaganza being developed by Mike
Wiley and Howard Craft (much in the vein of a 21st century folk play), among others.
Quite a few of our long-time subscribers have asked why we have let the PRC2
series go. To be totally honest, one reason is that as we recover from the pandemic, we need to
responsibly focus our financial and human resources and be very mindful of how we rebuild. Another is that
the PRC2 series had a great run, and in some ways, the one-person-show form had run its
course. But also, those “topical,” “hot button issue,” conversation-starting plays are no longer
relegated to our second stage. That work — often amplifying global majority and/or other
marginalized voices — is now happening on both our stages, or should I say on all our stages,
and the conversations are too. With a particular commitment to amplifying Southern voices—
tying to the University’s own Southern Futures initiative, women’s voices (a personal life-long
passion), and voices of the global majority, PlayMakers is now truly both a home for new play
development and a true hub of social and civic discourse in the region.
I arrived in North Carolina at a challenging moment. 2016 was a momentous year, in the state
and in the country, if you’ll remember. As I planned for my first programmed season, I knew it
would be my great joy and responsibility to give our artists and audiences new opportunities for
entertainment and debate, for escape and empathy, for beauty and for transformation. That
remains a credo.
We opened the 2016/17 season with transgender artist Mashuq Mushtaq Deen’s Draw the
Circle, a heart-forward, funny and frank story of his gender transition told mostly from the point
of view of his Muslim American family. That show, it turns out, has been a touchstone for my
tenure. Certainly, its title and message has been. Since then, much of my work has been driven
by the idea of drawing our circle wider: a wider and more representative audience, ever wider
representation of voices on stage and off, ever wider accessibility and ever wider curiosity. The
Public Theater in New York City has a slogan: the public theater is theater of, by, and for all
people. I too work in service of that aspiration. PlayMakers, in its own way, is a civic institution
engaging, both on-stage and off, with some of the most important ideas and social issues of
today.
In many ways, we find ourselves reengaging with and pushing the boundaries of this circle as
we emerge from the last three years. It has been challenging for all of us, and the theater and
the performing arts more broadly have suffered mightily. We have been faced with questions
about our viability, our responsibility, and now how we apply those learnings to our future. As I
mentioned, it is no longer enough for arts organizations to solely hold a transactional
relationship to the communities in which we reside. It is incumbent upon us to function in
service to and with the community. Additionally, as an artistic institution housed on the campus
of a Research 1 university, we can function as a synthesis point for the larger goals of the
academy. Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz recently wrote that “Our aim is that every Carolina
student will know how to grapple with the past, think critically about the present and have the
confidence to shape the future. They’ll understand data and information, know how to make new
discoveries and be ready to weigh ethical questions with rigor and empathy.” Simply put,
this is exactly the role and function of a meaningful, community-focused professional theater.
During the summer of 2020, a group of artists of color organized to develop a statement
directed to leaders of our nation’s institutional theaters. This group of over 250 artists
developed a list of demands of these predominantly white institutions, calling for an end to
historic, racist practices that make up “a house of cards built on white fragility.” We See You
White American Theatre was a bracing and honest account of many folks’ experiences of
working within the American theater. And it led to many, if not most, theaters developing a
series of anti-racist statements as well as a commitment to do better.
PlayMakers was no different. We had long been engaged in the difficult work of understanding
systemic racism, but we were called on to do more. We formally developed an Access, Equity,
Diversity and Inclusion (AEDI) committee that is made up of staff, artists, students and faculty
of the Department of Dramatic Art and PlayMakers, and committed resources to engaging one
of our brilliant faculty members, Professor Jacqueline Lawton, as a racial equity facilitator for
the entire unit. We began engaging intimacy directors and drama therapists in the development
of our work when it was called for. And we continued to deepen our conversations, internally
and with artists engaged in our work, to better understand how we can make PlayMakers more
equitable, and how we can ensure we are creating a safe, open, and inclusive work
environment where all artists are enabled to do their very best. The work is ongoing. It is
difficult, but it is necessary if we want to remain an important part of a national conversation
on the power and impact of live performance.
Today, for good reason, we spend a lot of time talking about AEDI. I’ll add that many educators,
artistic leaders and institutional and organizational leaders worry that it is all we talk about
these days, and that the work we are creating — and the craft we are trying to teach – may be
compromised. I will admit that this has been an exhausting, challenging time. But I also deeply
believe that my job is to keep my attention on both “areas:” indeed, it’s my job to make a
future for PlayMakers where the high quality of the creative work and the AEDI work are
inextricably and seamlessly linked. But I am also aware that I happen to be serving this
company at a time of transition and transformation when we are learning how to do that:
asking what the nature actually is of the nature to which we are “holding up a mirror.” I will also
share with you that this time has made me cherish the moments I get to spend in a rehearsal
hall: making the work, as opposed to only talking about it. And fundamentally, great stories,
told well, bridge so many divides. I try to make my rehearsal rooms brave spaces as opposed to
only safe spaces, whether I’m working on Shakespeare or Susan Lori Parks.
PlayMakers has always been committed to the “classical canon” of plays as part of the work it
puts on stage. We consider “classics” anything written 50 years ago or longer, so the pool of
titles is quite deep. These works are not to be cancelled: they became classics because they
contain fundamental, timeless human truths, and/or wrestle with things that we continue to
wrestle with today. For me, the question comes down to who gets to tell them? For the second
time in my tenure, I was proud to offer a season of diverse plays last year entirely directed by women,
three of whom are women of color. Our resident acting company is currently made up
of a majority of people of color. This means many of these classic works must be
reimagined. And they must be produced alongside works and voices that never had access to
become classics, as well as new work that will define a brand-new canon. And this to me is a
great joy. Done well, this diversity of perspectives makes for richer, more complex and
surprising work. And of course, it also informs how we balance a season of work.
In this coming season, PlayMakers will take on two classic works with a fresh new perspective.
First will be Kate Hamill’s adaptation of Jane Austen’s Emma, which recently premiered at the
Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis. Directed by Meredith McDonough, this is a wild and delicious
romp that, while maintaining Austen’s beautifully written social satire, brings with it a wildly
fresh and contemporary aesthetic. It has all the beautiful trappings of the period, infused with
color, music, and rhythms of the 21st century. I got to see the Guthrie’s production, which
Meredith directed, a couple of weeks ago, and I am so excited for our audiences to experience
Emma in this inspired, hilarious, and moving retelling. I hope it will appeal to audiences of all
ages.
The second of our classic texts this year will be my first attempt at directing one of greatest
plays in the English language. It hadn’t been on my immediate list, but I’ve been waiting for the
right moment and the right company with which to make it, and that moment has come. At the
start of the pandemic we were mid-production of a lovely production of Shakespeare’s Julius
Caesar in which our company member Tia James was in the role of Marc Antony. Watching her
build that role during rehearsal, and seeing it come to life on stage, I was convinced that Tia
should be my Hamlet. Finally, a few years later, I’m so excited (and terrified) to dig into this play
with her and the rest of the company. In fact, the work on my end began months ago as I put
my creative team together.
There is no question that I could probably quit my day job and spend every waking moment
between now and first rehearsal working on Hamlet. The further you dive, the further you have
to go. But working on it is also keeping me sharp, curious, and aware of our deep, complex and
shared humanity. Working on it is allowing me to dream on every conscious and unconscious
level.
And it reminds me that we never lose sight of the fact that one of our main goals is to
entertain—in communion with one another – in as many different ways as there are
perspectives. So I also want to share with you some information about our final show of the
season. In the summer of 2017 I went to see my dear friend and colleague Jeff Meanza’s
production of a quirky little play about an Elvis impersonator who, through some hijinks outside
of his control, is thrust into a new role as a drag queen. At the end of the show people were
actually dancing in the aisles, and I knew I wanted to tell that story on our stage. Well, that dear
friend and colleague is now back at PlayMakers, and I am happy to say that Matthew Lopez’s
The Legend of Georgia McBride will close out our season this year in all its gawdy glory. It’s
ridiculous funny and deeply poignant – a rare feat to accomplish – and I hope you’ll join in the
party.
I want to conclude with a few words born of one of my long-time favorite inspirational
quotes. At a conference I once attended, the Danish architect Bjark Ingells said that “I hate the
expression ‘think outside the box.’ In architecture, the box is everything. Our job is to dive
further and further into the box: to limitlessly dream into and push the boundaries of the box.”
I believe a director and an artistic leader should guide, encourage, provoke, protect, and
confront artists and audiences alike to dream and dive further and deeper “into the box.” I
believe that everything we produce — and the way we produce it — should in some small or
large way have this mission at its core. As a director, my greatest passion is for the detective
work in understanding the world of a play and discovering all the possible stories inside it. That
detective work is intellectual, spiritual, political and kinesthetic. As an artistic leader of a
regional theatre, the same applies. I try to be equally curious, compassionate and rigorous in
discovering the intricate make-up of all that defines our institution.
Transformation was the theme of my inaugural season, but I have quickly come to realize that it
has only just begun. And begun again. And again. That is what it means to be an artist.
Transformation will mean taking risks to plan for a future that may not (and in many cases
should not) look like our legacy, but must respect it as the context that got us here and gives us
the information that we need to move forward.
If universities are spaces for the development of new knowledge, then theater can give that
knowledge meaning. Theater artists begin with a text or an idea, then allow those ideas to
infect them through the creative process. Those ideas lead to dreams, and the dreams are
made manifest on stage. The playwright makes the dream tangible, the director envisions the
dream into a world, and the actors and designers breathe life into this new reality. Then we
invite the audience to share in this dreaming, giving them the fuel to inspire the flame of their
own imaginations: to awaken their empathy. I believe that it is our creative work and
responsibility to dream of a better world collectively. Because our imaginations are indeed the
stuff that dreams are made on.
Vivienne Benesch is Producing Artistic Director of PlayMakers Repertory Company and Professor
of the Practice in UNC’s Department of Dramatic Art. Before coming to UNC in 2017, she was
Artistic Director of the Chautauqua Theater Company from 2005 to 2016, and also has directed
productions by the Folger Theatre, Trinity Repertory Company, the Shakespeare Theatre of New
Jersey, the Detroit Public Theatre, and New York’s Roundabout Theatre, among others. As an
actress, she has worked on and off-Broadway, in film and television and at many of the
country’s most celebrated theaters, including an OBIE Award for her performance in Lee
Blessing’s “Going to St. Ives.” In 2017 she was awarded the Zelda Fichandler Award, given by the
Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation to a director or choreographer who has made,
and who continues to make, a significant contribution to their community through extraordinary
work.