When disaster strikes in the middle of a project, it helps to remember that what appears catastrophic may be a sign that space is opening for something wonderful to emerge. This was one of the great lessons we learned as we began moving into the production phase of EDWIN. The actor who had filled the role of Edwin Booth through several years bowed out. Two weeks before auditions were set to start, the director who’d been with us since we began moving from page to stage resigned. On the first day of rehearsal, the musical director who had worked with us so masterfully in the past, informed us of a change in his own schedule—and, well, you get the picture.

By then, we’d begun to discover the magical pull of the “Great Circle.” When our director resigned, Eric and I reached out to people in the field, but the directors we knew, and others recommended to us, were already engaged. In a moment of inspiration, we asked our gifted casting director, Stephanie Klapper, for help. She recommended three people and we immediately contacted the first person on the list: Christopher Scott.

Chris came to my home to meet with us and within five minutes of conversation, Eric and I knew we’d found the right person—a warm, brilliant, responsive, and experienced director. Chris proved a sheer delight to work with, creating a relaxed, supportive, and stimulating rehearsal environment, collaborating seamlessly with the designers, and offering tremendous insight and imagination to the work. But his gifts to us didn’t end there.

Chris brought us a new musical director, the superbly talented Evan Alparone, as well as a remarkably efficient assistant for our marvelous stage manager, Maxine Glorsky. Maxine, in turn, encouraged a long-term colleague, the gifted scenic and lighting designer, Chad McArver, to join us. Slowly but surely, the “Great Circle” began to widen, drawing more people into its orbit—including our wonderful audiences and supporters. And it’s still expanding as we reach out to others and they reach out to us. And that’s another lesson about the power of circles. Lines can expand, but they can also divide. Circles embrace.

One of the first concerns designers always face is how to help tell the story that’s been written and put it up on its feet. To me that’s always the most interesting aspect of design. Some people talk about solving problems. But design isn’t necessarily about solving problems. It’s about uncovering the details of the world in which characters of a certain time and place lived, and finding a way to translate that in today’s terms. As a designer, I ask myself, “What is that world? And that’s where the process becomes really exciting.

For me, there’s also a unique advantage in designing both set and lights. Usually, two or three people collaborate on those parts of production design. In the case of EDWIN, I have the opportunity to use both set and lighting to tell an unusual story that unfolds in unusual way. I can use both the set and the lights to create a visual way to help tell a story that shifts between different times and “realities”: the present” (the night Edwin Booth returned to the stage after the Lincoln assassination), memories drawn from Edwin’s past, and the spectral appearances of the people he loved and lost as he prepares to return to the stage.

A confession: I’m a theater teacher. I knew about John Wilkes Booth. I knew about Edwin Booth. But I’d never realized they were brothers. But I’d never connected them. It’s a theater story! And discovering that has made working on EDWIN even more engaging.

What struck me first about approaching EDWIN is that it’s not a linear work. It’s collage-like, transitioning back and forth in time. Some characters are alive, some are memories, some are “ghosts.” Because of that, my first instincts about designing the piece were to create a costume color palette that is both grounded and ethereal: beautiful sepias and rich chocolate browns paired with ghost-like purples and blue. The combination is intended to evoke a nostalgic feeling, similar to old photographs of daguerreotype, while also conveying a ghost-like quality.

In costuming a piece like this, it’s important to remember that the characters in the piece were real people who played important roles in the history of American culture during a period of dramatic change. Because the EDWIN encompasses 20 years of history, the director, Chris Scott, and I determined that the best approach would be to create a costume design approach that acknowledged and honored not only the changes covered a 20-year epoch in American history, but also the curious part our particular past in determining present identity.

One of the most important considerations in creating the world of EDWIN  involved identifying and defining the different emotional “worlds” in which each of the people in characters in EDWIN lived. How might we reinforce when we’re in the “real” world of the night Edwin Booth returned to the stage after the Lincoln assassination; a world of memories; and a world in which ghosts or specters could appear?

Drawing those distinctions came down to how the characters move onstage in relationship to each other. Establishing the “real world” was primary, so that we could be clearly delineate the ways in which what is conventionally accepted as “reality” might be broken—for example, “walking through walls.” Some people are okay with the idea that spiritual or ghostly beings can walk through walls; others accept that memories of people, events, personal interactions, and so forth can pass through the emotional “walls” we build against painful remembrances.

Because the writing of the piece is very fluid, I wanted the staging to match that: distinguishing between the “real” walls of the present, the walls of memory, and the deeper emotional walls behind which Edwin and the people closest to him had built to protect —or conceal—their needs, their dreams, their doubts, griefs, and fears.

EDWIN, The Story of Edwin Booth dips back into many moments in Edwin Booth’s past. The “present,” however, is the evening of January 3, 1866, the evening he returned to the stage for the first time after his brother assassinated Abraham Lincoln. Most of the “present” action occurs in Edwin’s dressing room at the old Winter Garden Theater, 667 Broadway, across from what is now West Third Street. That theater burned down in 1867. (It is therefore not the Winter Garden Theater that housed a group of singing cats for almost 20 years.)

According to reports of the period, January 3, 1866 was one of the coldest days on record in New York City: 15 degrees below zero, Fahrenheit. There would not have been anything even approximating central heating at the time. So the extreme chill in both the “present” and the “past” would—not unreasonably—influence the way people dressed, moved, and breathed. Moments of physical proximity between characters may have as much to do with emotional intimacy as simply a way to help each other keep warm.

The mid-nineteenth century was also an age of gaslight; a time when shadows could be ghosts, or ghosts might just be shadows; a time when vision flickered on the edge of magic… or madness, and memory was rich.

photo credits: Folger Shakespeare Library

Most people, when they hear the name Booth, think “Oh, the guy who shot Lincoln.” (Disclosure: I responded the same way when Jane first described the project to me.) As Jane outlined Edwin’s story, I was by turns fascinated and surprised—and ultimately appalled. One of the greatest actors our country has ever produced had been all but erased from history. I found myself thinking, “A hundred years from now, will Meryl Streep, Marlon Brando, or Paul Newman be similarly erased?” Probably not. None of the genuine legends of recent vintage have had their names stained by an appalling crime committed by a family member.

In short order, I set out to learn as much about the man as I could: combing Internet sites, poring through the very few biographies of Edwin, reminiscences of his friends, and collection of his letters. Necessarily, the search took me into related terrain: the history of the Civil War and accounts of the harsh travel and performance conditions of itinerant actors of the period (no airplanes, or buses, or even two star hotels; these intrepid men and women trekked from city to city in tumble-down coaches, steamships, and painfully slow-moving trains, often lodging in places infested with fleas, lice, and other critters).

What emerged from this voyage of discovery was a portrait of a courageous and conflicted man who was coping with challenges to which many of us nowadays can probably relate. A child of an alcoholic, who later struggled with his own alcoholism and more than a dash of dysfunctional family tension. A man plagued by financial insecurity, grief, guilt, loss, and tremendous self-doubt. A single parent.

Yet in the midst of all this he managed to transform the art of acting, stepping past the conventional devices of posing and declaiming, and adopting a naturalistic style that anticipated by decades the approach that has come to define American acting.

This is the man I determined to bring to life on the stage—so when people hear the name Booth, they won’t think, “Oh, the guy who shot Lincoln,” but “Oh, the genius who triumphed against the odds.”

photo credits: Folger Shakespeare Library

Marianna is a true adventurer. Even the most experienced artists sometimes have difficulty stepping outside their own comfort zone. Marianna Rosett is not one of them. Her courage and brilliance in stepping away from her home as a pianist and classical improviser are inspiring. Now for the first time, she has focused her incomparable gifts on the creation of a theatrical work. The music she has written for EDWIN evokes the period of the Civil War. It suggests the folk songs of the time and hints at the music of the period that people were listening to like Schumann. It has weight and body and sometimes an “incredible lightness of being.” It is full of color, melody and heart.

We became collaborators in 1971 in the Juilliard Drama Division under the direction of John Houseman. I was wearing an orange balloon in my hair when we met. Marianna had on a paisley skirt, a pink velvet jacket and red boots. She walked into the studio, sat down at the piano, and played the most beautiful music I had ever heard for a dance class.

Her work is rich, physical, and endlessly imaginative. A modern dance class requires an improvisational musician to have a great sensitivity to movement. Few can create a musical fabric that heightens and enriches the dancer’s work so completely. Marianna Rosett is that person.

Her work for singers is equally impressive. She is able to create a physical sound–a sound that supports and often leads the power, line, and phrasing of the libretto. She understands so well how to heighten a theatrical moment.

Now you, too, can hear her music live and enjoy her gifts!

photo credits: ©Ifaat Qureshi Design