By Shamrock McShane, August 2008

There are always two plays going on at once. There’s the play on stage – what you see while you’re sitting in the audience - and there is the play backstage - where the players are.

If you’re not a player, you’re looking for some shows to see. If you’re a player, you’re looking for work.

My esteemed colleague Scot Davis and I endeavored to size up our opportunities by casting an eye over the season offerings at all the theaters in town, before finally settling on the idea of doing our own touring production of David Mamet’s The Duck Variations.

Actually, the first bright idea we had was to follow up our site-specific production of David Mamet’s American Buffalo at the Civic Media Center last fall with Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross.

So much for that idea. The whole town must be Mamet- crazy. As it turns out, Tim Altmeyer is directing that play at the University of Florida next spring. And like that ain’t enough Drew Blair has a good mind to direct Glengarry at the Acrosstown this fall.

Like the great man said, “If you don’t make it yourself, it’s not fun, it’s entertainment.”

Looking for work or looking for a show start by considering.

The Directors

At the Hippodrome Theatre, the directing duties are divided between the producing director Mary Hausch and the artistic director Lauren Caldwell. Hausch shapes plays with all the knowledge of three decades spent on the Hipp’s unique thrust stage in its intimate house. Caldwell stages plays with a dynamic intensity that shakes scripts into new rhythms and the wildest of stage pictures. As of press time, they were still dickering over this year’s choices, although Caldwell is a good bet to take us to the underworld in Eurydice, and Guttenberg is the just the sort of streamlined vehicle that Hausch is known to drive.

UF naturally provides the deepest and most accomplished ensemble of directors in town. Keep in mind that the very notion of a director is a modern concept, not coming into play until the 19th century. Shakespeare’s company got on quite well without one. All the fellas in the company knew what they were doing. The best directors at UF, or anywhere else, are still like that. They are theatricians, meaning they know what it takes to make theater.

What they do best at UF is make choices. Mikell Pinkney can be counted on to choose provocative and substantial work and then to explore it to its depths. Ralf Remshardt offers a global perspective, Tony Mata the precision and polish of the Broadway musical, David Young acting chops, Judith Williams the classics.

You’ve got to work your way up at the Gainesville Community Playhouse. The old pros there are Jenny Stringfellow and Ted Lewis. They know the ropes. And there’s that brand new proscenium theatre to play in.

Our old friends at the Acrosstown Repertory Theatre have been waging the counter culture war since the Cold War. Jerry Rose is one of the bravest directors in town, always pointing challenging material at the heart of contemporary issues and conflicts. James Henri earned our respect on the set of our movie The Votive Pit, where he was script coordinator, assistant director and idea man.