Rick:

Hello, and welcome to Northwest Philly Neighbors.

I'm Rick Mohr, continuing my conversation with Quintessence Theater director, Alex Burns.

In part one, we heard some great stories of how he found his way to directing and launched Quintessence Theater in Mount Airy.

Now in part two, we get to hear how a Quintessence production is created as he talks about staging Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus, which is known as a play you can't actually do on stage because it's so ambitious.

We'll hear about the charismatic and dashing actor he chose for the lead role, figuring out how the devil can set off fireworks on stage when it's prohibited by the fire marshal, how he helps actors get to places they haven't gone before, and lots more.

Along the way, we see his enthusiasm and vision and sense of adventure and how he builds a great experience for the actors and the audience.

Stay tuned.

To take us into your world a little more, I wonder if you might pick a play that you've directed at Quintessence and kind of take us through all of the stages of it.

From when you first, you know, were reading the play and what you were thinking about your goals for the production and kind of how you planned it out and then the casting and the rehearsals and the set.

I mean, obviously, there's a limit to the amount of details, but I just think you're immersed in this world that most of us never see.

And I just love to hear the whole story.

Alex Burns:

I have to remember, I think it was in season seven, we did a production of Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus, which was a play that had been sort of in my imagination for a very long time.

It's known as one of those plays that you sort of can't do on stage because of what it calls for theatrically.

But I was really intrigued with this question of, when is somebody acting in a way that is diabolical?

When does someone cross a line in terms of human choice and behavior that then makes them of the devil or acting on behalf of the devil, versus when is somebody acting in a way that then makes them saint-like or of the sort of higher divine calling?

And when I have a question like that in my own being that I feel like the world is asking, I usually start to think about when in art have we challenged ourselves to ask that question.

And so we built this repertory of George Bernard Shaw's Saint Joan, which asks the question in a different way, and Marlowe's, Christopher Marlowe's, Doctor Faustus, knowing full well that these are two of the biggest plays ever written that require performances from the actors that are absolutely extraordinary on the level of a Sarah Bernhard or a Laurence Olivier.

And we were going to do this in our small space in Monterey with a group of 12 actors.

Pretty much when we begin a process like that, we have an ensemble of actors who have been part of the Quintessence family.

It's not a formal ensemble, but a group of artists who are committed to the larger vision of the company.

And we almost never do a show with a titular character like Hamlet or King Lear or Doctor Faustus without knowing which of the family will be playing that role.

It's really dangerous to try and do a play like that without knowing what you're building it around.

So it usually starts with those key artists.

Rick:

And that's you thinking and maybe talking with other people about who it's going to be.

Alex Burns:

Yeah, it's usually me just sort of saying, I'd really like to do this with this actor.

And then I reach out to the actor and say, hey, does this interest you?

Rick:

And who was that in this case?

Alex Burns:

It was Greg Isaac, who has done amazing work with us and has been seen all over the Philadelphia area now.

Rick:

What was it about him that made you think he was the right guy?

Alex Burns:

Well, Greg is a very charismatic and very sort of dashing person that can sort of seemingly convince you to do anything.

And he also is very intellectual in a kind of in a kind of closeted way.

He's very he's incredibly ponderous and thoughtful.

And there's a kind of mystery to what he's actually thinking.

And those two things to me are very much Dr.

Faustus, because you have this world renowned scholar who is so surpassed himself in the natural sciences that he gets bored.

And so he breaks into the dark arts and starts to convene with spirits to try and find greater power in science and is successful at that.

But to the world is still just this kind of masterful professor and teacher.

And I think there are certain people that can play that kind of duplicity in a way that's engaging.

And there are others who become sort of alienating and creepy and distanced.

And so Greg to me was that sort of perfect balance.

And Greg also has this incredible voice that he can do many things with.

And finding someone who can speak sort of a more scientific language and then also break into sort of diabolical incantations in a way that makes sense that's of his body requires a voice that's quite exceptional.

And he definitely had a voice that was capable of doing that.

And then really, for me, it's about looking at the play and looking at the events that the play calls for.

And Doctor Faustus, as I said, it's almost an impossible play to stage.

They're supposed to be flying around on a dragon for part of the play.

They're supposed to invade the Vatican and harass the Pope.

They're supposed to be invisible during that and destroy this whole feast and make the Pope think that it's all being done by ghosts.

There's a whole sequence where Helen of Troy is resurrected as a corporal being so that she can please physically please Faustus.

And there's this whole romantic or erotic section that happens in the play.

Just these multiple moments of just wonder that are supposed to happen.

And Marlowe, in his day, he was writing at the same time as Shakespeare was known as being the sort of blockbuster movie guy who would do all the big spectacles while Shakespeare was focusing primarily on language and sort of human event.

Marlowe was blowing things up and was using huge sort of set pieces.

And so how are we going to do that?

And I then bring on a group of designers who I love working with and dreaming with.

And it's about talking about those events that we need to somehow create for the audience.

In the theater, the amazing thing is you don't actually have to do all the work.

You can do some work that just sort of suggests a moment.

And if the audience is with you, they'll fill in the rest of it, which is to me the great beauty of theater.

And after a play where you use the audience's imagination, you can ask people to describe to you things that happen on stage that never happened.

And they'll tell you that they saw things happen on stage as a collective that they didn't actually see because you've set them up to see it.

So it presents itself to them, which is something that I love in terms of the magic of theater.

So then we found a puppet designer to help us build a dragon.

Rick:

Okay.

So these designers that you meet with, you collaborate in many productions with them?

Yes.

Who are they?

Alex Burns:

For this particular project, Brian Sidney Bembridge was the designer for the set and the lights.

And he is a designer I met when I was in school out in Chicago and works all over the country.

And he's a genius in terms of simply creating these sort of magical worlds.

Rick:

And when you talked with him about it, was he excited?

Alex Burns:

Yes, and thought I was crazy because he's used to working at Steppenwolf and the Guthrie and to say, come to Mount Airy, we have like $3,000 and we're going to do this crazy thing.

It's like, yes, here we go.

Let's do this.

How are you going to do this?

And I think that's really the thrilling part about working in a theater of our size right now is because the people who are coming to collaborate are thrilled to be working on these plays that are not usually done and are thrilled to be trying to create something extraordinary out of almost nothing.

Everyone has to be on the top of their game and using their imaginary powers to the greatest of their ability.

And it's so much fun sitting in some of our design meetings because it's like, oh, well, in this, I saw the show in Cincinnati.

And in this show, they did this amazing thing where they had these pipes in the stage floor and then they were able to sort of throw flowers up through the pipes.

And it was everyone was like stunned and it was just a simple little trick.

And then so it's like, oh, well, we could use that for like the devil's fingers or, you know, and it's just everyone sort of throwing ideas in and half the ideas never make it onto the stage.

They either are too expensive or, you know, you find a better idea or a simpler idea.

I think the thing that people don't entirely realize about theater is is the sort of strategic puzzle that it is.

I mean, there are a number of times where someone comes up to me and says, oh, my God, I can't believe you.

Like, why would you ever have used that person or like, why didn't you try and get this person to play this part?

And part of it is, you know, we build us, we build a calendar.

We have a specific time of rehearsal, specific time of performances, and we reach out to all of our favorite people and audition as many people as we can.

And put together a team for who's available at that moment.

And sometimes it turns out like the obvious ideal person becomes unavailable.

Or as a smaller theater, there's a clause in the equity contract, a greater remuneration clause.

So if, say, a larger theater says to this actor, oh, we want you to come play this role, we have to surrender them if they choose to go, you know.

So that's just part of the great puzzle of it all.

And then I think the other great part of the puzzle is that we then, with our budget, do a lot of incredible sort of strategizing in terms of how do we spend the money we have to create the most interesting piece of theater.

Rick:

So what were a couple examples in those design meetings of decisions that you made along those lines for this play?

Alex Burns:

Well, the play calls for fireworks.

Mephistopheles is supposed to, whenever he gets happy, he sort of sets fireworks off all over the stage.

And it's obviously a very important part of the play.

We are in a space where we cannot have flame.

It's dictated by the fire marshal here in Philadelphia.

I totally understand why.

So how do we create this experience of fireworks?

So we had lots of different ideas.

Do we use projections?

Well, projections are flat and are dead.

I mean, it's just light that's being put upon a surface.

And we were doing the show in a runway configuration.

So we had really nothing to sort of project it on except for the walls behind the audience.

And that seemed sort of boring.

So then we started to think of, oh, well, those party poppers that they have, right?

You just pull the string on and then it's an explosion.

Like, could we use that?

We tried that.

They sort of felt silly, you know, it felt a little too small.

So then we found these large party poppers that were these like things that you shoot off at a wedding or at a parade.

Rick:

Like somebody went out and looked for them.

Alex Burns:

Yeah, we got some.

We had them shipped in from China.

We like played around with the different colors and the textures.

And we found ones that we could even stuff ourselves with different things.

And then we wanted to see, what does it feel like as an audience member if this is shot over your head?

Is that a fun thing?

Is that a scary thing?

And that was something that evolved first, just sitting at a table.

And then we tried it out before the audience showed up.

And then we tried it out with the audience and found the best audience for a different play that just happened to be there.

No, no, for like in our previews.

Rick:

In your previews.

Yeah.

Alex Burns:

And that's really where we test out a lot of things.

And we're a lot of things that we're like, oh, well, that was a great idea, but not this one.

Or we decide that it's just not helpful to the event or the story.

There were also all these sequences where these devils come up from hell, spirits that come up.

And we were imagining what is it that how do we create something that is just an actor in a costume that will truly horrify an audience today?

Like, what is this thing?

And we tried all these different images.

And, you know, this was at this was in the height of like The Walking Dead, which is very sort of specific zombie.

We didn't want them to be zombies because, you know, they're devils.

So we just kept playing with all finding images and we got really interested in this sort of Japanese horror films and their representation of these kind of ghoulish diabolical figures from those.

So we took the sort of character from The Ring, which is sort of a horror film, and tried to create our own version of this kind of fiend that would come on through the floor and walk on.

And even though the cast was men and women, all the fiends were dressed in the sort of woman's garb with these heels and these wigs, walking in a discombobulated, almost deadlike fashion.

And every time we had a student matinee, which was so much fun, and they'd come out of the floor, the students would just start to scream at the top of their voices, which to me was a total win, because that's the intent of the moment.

Occasionally, we get responses from the adults, but they were usually more clutching, more pearls than they were screaming.

So yeah, I mean, really that's part of the joy of it, is in that part of the process is really trying to see where your imagination goes with the requests of the play.

It's easy to talk about this because this is different than a lot of the work we do at Quintessence.

This really is a kind of spectacle where we're trying to use very limited resources to really create these sort of larger-than-life theatrical moments.

And using things like trap doors and smoke machines and wigs and makeup and blood and all of that is so much fun.

And then for me, really, when I'm in rehearsal and we're building this world around the actors, as we were talking about earlier, it's really about how language functions in the theatrical space when it is verse.

Marlowe is famous for his known as his Marlovian verse or his thrusting verse because it's so strong and heavy and direct and it falls right on the meter.

And it's really fascinating, again, how much today actors want to try and naturalize that and make it like common speech or dialogue, as opposed to the more sort of declaimed Marlovian speech.

And the rehearsal process was really about finding the balance of those two worlds.

So we could, in a smaller space, involve the audience in this huge poetry.

Rick:

Can you think of an example of a particular actor and a particular part of it that you kind of went back and forth with?

Alex Burns:

Well, yeah, I mean, the end of the play is when Faustus, he knows that at midnight he's going to get dragged down to hell to pay for all the things he has bought with his soul.

That's the end of his tenure.

And he has this incredible speech, one of the greatest speeches ever written, as he's trying to sort of justify his choices, but also sort of proclaim his, not innocence, but justify his choice.

And at the same time, he's also freaking out because he's about to go to hell, literally.

And what was really interesting with Greg working on that speech was how much in our modern, like post Freudian psychological world, he wanted to internalize and sort of be feeling the duress of that conflict.

And the thrill of it was seeing as he found out how to sort of really call to God as an actor on stage, asking for forgiveness, and not think of it as an internal event, then the experience of that desperation and the need and the horror was something that the audience was getting to feel as opposed to watch, which to me is always the goal with these plays.

Because then again, I don't think people are thinking about the language or that word that was an Elizabethan word that is not quite as clear anymore.

They're feeling the kind of event of it, the language event of it.

And I was so excited because it's such a huge task to play Faustus.

It's one of those roles where you're sort of on stage the whole time.

And to watch Greg find that control and like release that final moment was amazing.

And that's why we need the rehearsal time.

And that's why we need the space to really sort of find out how it functions and how to bring it to life.

Rick:

Yeah.

And you succeed at getting these great performances out of actors.

What have you learned about working with actors that makes you able to pull it off?

Alex Burns:

I'm still figuring that out.

I know that my favorite part of the process is to be in the room working with the actor on that very thing.

And every actor has a different process and has a different set of needs and is in a different place when they enter the room.

So a lot of what excites me is trying to figure out what they need to get to where I think they should be.

How to know when to give the right feedback.

When something I might say is going to confuse an actor versus elevate or clarify for an actor.

Rick:

Can you think of an example of when you got it wrong and when you got it right?

Alex Burns:

So in Playboy of the Western World, which has just now gone up, which is open now, I'm working with this actor named Melody Ladd, who is just a powerhouse actor.

And she was in our production of Awakened Sing last year as the daughter.

And I didn't direct that, but I got to watch her and was just like, I can't wait to work with this actor.

And she's playing Pagene Mike, who's the firebrand Irish daughter of the bar owner, who is sort of the center of the romance and the drama in the play.

Historically, the character is known for being just sort of so divisive because of her strength and her kind of biting tongue and her lack of sort of traditional feminine gentility.

And it was really interesting working with Melody trying to figure out how to empower her and give her strength in an Irish way.

Because as Americans, when we get strong, we usually get really heavy.

We start to put weight on words and it's aggressive.

It's like there's an attack and our curses are very strong and harsh.

And the thing about most of the biting that happens in the sort of Irish dialect is a sharpness.

There's a kind of wit to it and there's a kind of dryness that's so much nastier and also funny.

So what did I say?

I gave her a very specific note about how to shift the weight of a certain word or a line that she was giving.

And the way she responded to that was to sort of take all engagement, like emotional engagement off of it entirely, which was how she technically sort of responded to the note.

But then it took away the actual bite that was necessary for her to be Pagene through a section of the play.

And it's really funny when, specifically in a play that is using language in a way that is as specific as an Irish play, when an actor can't hear the music or the rhythm just innately and you're sort of translating it and finding out what is the word that means that thing in their kind of vocabulary.

And you usually do with the actors that are as good as actors like Melody or a number of the actors, we get to work with at Quintessence.

But again, that's just about vocabulary.

For me, this was the first time that I had ever worked with Melody, and that's not usually the case for me.

I usually have worked with actors a number of times.

So I already know a lot of the words or the systems that they're thinking in, and they also know a lot of the words that I use.

So we sort of develop shorthand and that's great.

But yeah, that to me is like such a gift.

And one of the negative criticisms I've received as a director is that I love the actors that I know.

I love thinking about where I think their capacity is.

And usually that's outside of the realm of what they normally get to do or get cast as, as an actor, because we're living in this moment of kind of, for lack of a better word, air quoting this authenticity, where you should be what you are playing.

So the idea of acting or playing a character is sort of very frowned upon at the moment in the sort of world of American entertainment or culture.

But I love about theater is the fact that you get to be anybody.

And if you do your work, you can truly convince an audience that you're absolutely anything.

And so the fun for me is sometimes I think having worked with an actor, I see this kind of part of themselves that they're not necessarily reaching for or offering themselves up as to the world largely because the world hasn't been inviting them to.

And the fun for me is then saying, so we know we're going to the end of the dock here.

And if we might not get there or we might fall off.

But I'm really excited about going on this journey with you and I trust you.

Do you trust me?

Do you want to go on this journey?

And those are some of my favorite projects because then we're both aware of the challenge.

We're both aware of what we're trying to do.

And when you get there, it's like so exciting.

And sometimes you don't.

And sometimes it creates a kind of, I can't believe you thought I could do this.

This isn't my thing.

Or especially on those first couple of previews in front of an audience when you feel where you still have to go.

That's the moment usually where an actor will come to me like, I can't believe you put me in this role and I'm not there yet.

And it's like, no, this is what this time is for.

We're going to get there.

It will happen.

But I love that challenge.

And I don't think that many, we're not really given a lot of space to make those kind of risks in the theater because we sort of always have to deliver.

And if you don't, you like get bad reviews, people don't come.

And part of what I try and do is create a space where we build great theater so that when we take risks like that, whether they are the greatest performance of all time, which is what we're trying to do, or whether they are a great attempt at creating a great performance, I try and create a space where both are okay so that we can dare to try and create great art.

Yeah.

Rick:

That example that you were thinking of when the person came after the previews, what was that example?

Alex Burns:

I won't name this actor because I don't want to offend anybody, but in the second part of the SingFest we're doing are a series of one-act plays, and there are some very larger-than-life Irish comedic characters.

And it's always interesting when you ask someone to take on sort of an archetypal comedic role because the expectation when you're doing specifically comedy is that you're going to get laughs.

And audiences are not always generous with their laughter, and sometimes an audience will seek it.

I mean, you can literally stand on stage and watch some of our audiences, and they have their hands over their mouths and they're rocking back and forth, but there's not a sound coming out of them, which is so unfair to the actors because they're waiting for that response.

Rick:

To hear that feedback, yeah.

Alex Burns:

But sometimes it doesn't happen.

And then there are other times where they just genuinely don't find it to be funny.

And so in this particular situation, when we were sort of really fine-tuning those pieces, which are incredibly complicated, finding the right temperature for that comedy was really crucial.

And you can't overplay it and you also can't underplay it.

And so that was one of those moments where one of the actors came to me and was like, I can't believe you're making me do this.

Like this is not my wheelhouse.

And now it's one of the most beloved performances in the festival.

So it's just funny.

Rick:

And they made it to the other side of that.

Yes.

Alex Burns:

Yeah, I mean, I'm trying to think of an experience where we didn't make it to the other side.

I think we've had one or two experiences where an actor wasn't, just didn't have the facility with the language to stay on top of the language.

So that at certain performances, these huge pieces of text would just sort of overwhelm their capacity, which is something that you just then, when you have a situation like that, you keep working with them as the show's running, because it really is purely about the musculature of both the brain and the mouth and how to just fine tune that and keep building it and strengthening it.

And I had one actor who was in one of our Shakespeare series who had that struggle.

And then after the show went away and then came back and is now one of our best actors because the experience of doing that and not being in full control and working with these other amazing actors who had the facility showed them that despite all of their training, the classics really require an even greater level of discipline and focus in terms of how to use words and how to control language and how to serve it to an audience.

And so I think that's an important part of what we do is not just putting on plays, but is building artists and giving them spaces to fail in and to grow in and to learn from and then to keep bringing them back as much as possible so that growth can continue.

But that's a hard thing to do in the economics of the world.

Rick:

Yeah.

So when you were casting Doctor Faustus, did you have specific people in mind for most of the roles?

Or is there still a time where people come in and read and you watch and think?

Alex Burns:

Yes.

I usually have, again, I have that sort of core group of actors that are part of the Quintessence family.

And I usually reach out to that group first with saying, this is what we're doing.

This is what I'd like you to do.

Does this interest you?

And then once that process has happened, I love it when it's about half full, the cast by that point.

Usually it's more likely a quarter full.

And then we have a general audition where we post audition notices and we see lots of actors all locally in Philadelphia.

And then if we still can't find the key people, we'll then have auditions in New York and do an open call there and then bring people down to Philadelphia to be in the show.

Rick:

And what is that like for you when you're sitting there watching actor after actor?

Like, is it pretty clear to you whether or not each person is right?

Alex Burns:

Well, the audition experience is awful for everybody.

I think it's one of the worst ways to meet an actor because it's such an artificial environment and there's so much pressure on this moment that I don't really think you get to learn that much from it.

The traditional idea of an audition is helpful to me when I have seen an actor in theaters elsewhere.

I already have a relationship with them and I try and see as much theater as I can so that I know generally what the capacity of the actor is or have a sense of them as an actor.

So then I will send them aside, which is a portion of the script, and they'll come in and perform it for me.

And that's not then to meet them as an actor, that's then to see them explore a character.

And then with a lot of the great actors or professional actors in the city, it's really not an audition.

It's me saying, Hi, this is who I am.

This is our theater.

This is how I'm going to approach this play.

This is how I approach language.

This is how verse works for me.

Is this interesting to you?

Are you interested in this journey?

Rick:

So you keep a bunch of information, kind of notes on all of the actors that are around.

Alex Burns:

Oh, we have filing cabinets full.

Rick:

And then you're go you're leafing through and thinking, OK, and then you send an email to the person.

Alex Burns:

Please, will you join us for an audition?

Will you meet me for coffee and talk about this play?

The open calls are the harder ones because they're required by the union.

So we have to every show we do, we have to do a full day where we see almost a hundred people.

And because of the union, the actors, equity actors, we're not allowed to control who we see on those days.

So anyone who shows up or sends in a submission, we technically have to see until the day is full.

And those days are really hard because, again, we can't curate it at all.

So someone might say, oh, I'd really like to play this role.

And it's like that's I'm glad that you really want to play the role.

We don't.

It's not always the right person for our vision to play or for the role.

Rick:

But you sometimes get a person or two from those.

Alex Burns:

Well, that's how we met Melody.

She came down from New York for an open call day.

Jake Lowenthal, who was in our King Lear last year, came down for an open call from New York and was our Edgar.

I'm talking disparagingly about it and then I hear I'm like, it saved our lives.

It is an important part of it.

It's just a very challenging format.

And what makes me so sad is how many people come in and either they haven't quite had the time to prepare the piece, so they end up just sort of, I wouldn't say embarrassing themselves, but they just don't show us anything in the period of a two minute audition.

And they've spent so much time and energy, right, coming all the way to our theater and presenting themselves.

So that's where I feel sort of poorly about that.

I really do love when actors invite me to come see their work if they think it's particularly good, as limited as my time, as I try and see as much as I can in the area.

And then really what in a basic audition you're looking for is how does this person move?

Are they comfortable in their body when they walk in the room?

Can they be present physically?

And a lot of people can't.

And as film and television take over, you don't have to be in your body in film and television.

So that's a burden of the theater.

Then are they articulate?

Can they use language in a way to communicate, to tell a story?

Then are they a storyteller?

Have they conveyed something about their own humanity and shared it with me through this piece of text, whatever it is that they're using?

And then what is the control that they have?

Did they engage me?

Like, did I feel something?

Did they change the temperature in the room?

And then the other little pieces that I use are just voice because I'm really interested in the music of the voice and how the voice functions.

So what's the temperature of their voice?

Can they do pure tone?

Do they have a broken voice?

What is the character of the voice that they have and how will it fit into the band or the symphony that the orchestra were trying to create for the show?

Because you don't want to have three people with the same voice on stage playing the mother, the daughter and the crazy neighbor.

So how do you balance all of that?

And so we take all of that and then if we are able to, we sometimes have callbacks where then we'll bring actors in to read scenes against each other just to make sure the chemistry will work in some of the more complicated dynamics of relationships.

And then we make our offers and see who we get.

And since becoming an Equity Theater, we've been much luckier in terms of being able to say, would you like to do this?

Here's what we can pay you.

And people are like, yes, that's great.

Thank you so much.

I'm really excited to join you.

Before we made that shift, there were a number of times where we'd say we'd like you to do this.

And they'd be like, I can't afford to do that project because of the rate that you're at.

So that's really part of our goal, too, is making sure that not only can we interest these actors, but can we secure them with what we're able to pay them.

Rick:

Yeah.

Alex Burns:

And we're also paying health care and pension payments for all of the union actors.

Rick:

Yeah.

Alex Burns:

So it's a lot.

Rick:

Great.

Alex Burns:

But it's important.

Rick:

And then how many performances do you go to once the rehearsals are done?

Alex Burns:

I go to all of the previews in the opening and then I try and check in with the show intermittently.

In my mind, I say once a week.

It's usually every other week.

And then there's usually a series of events that sort of take me to the show.

We do an archival recording of the show, which I usually record.

And we usually do talk backs or pre-show discussions.

I usually will stay around for the show.

I have an amazing stage management team right now that are not just managing the technical aspects, but really taking care of the acting company.

And Maggie is so good that she's actually able to note the actors and assist me in that process.

So I very much trust and know that the work she's doing is sort of making sure that the play remains sort of integral to what we created on opening night and grows appropriately as it sort of runs its course.

And that's really rare in the theater to have someone that can both be the stage manager and also take on the artistic sort of care of the project.

Rick:

So you just had an opening night a couple days ago.

How did you feel walking home after that?

Alex Burns:

I was so tired that I don't think I was feeling very much.

These reps are really amazing in how far they push you to your sort of the extremes of endurance and emotion in a way that I'm a sucker for.

I love it.

But it's really fascinating when a family of artists are telling multiple stories at the same time and trying to do them with as much kind of vim, vigor and integrity as you can.

It really just takes everything from you.

And I think what's really funny is I pretend that I don't, but I really do care not about the reaction in terms of like, you did such a great job with the show, like that kind of feedback.

But when the show ends, I really care about the feeling that the audience has.

And sometimes the audience will have one reaction at the very end of the show.

And by the time they get to the lobby, they're in a completely different place.

So it's really to me that moment right when the show ends.

And I always like to think that the better I get as a director, the more I can control that, which is not true.

But I like thinking that.

So to me, we were able to get to a place with the finale and with the whole event that was pretty close to where I was hoping to get.

So that's always a nice feeling.

And it's not always the case.

I think if I wanted to be a type of artist that was in full control of that, I would be working in film.

You know, part of it is, as a theater artist, is you pull together the best people you possibly can to try and create a theatrical event.

And you don't really know.

You have all these ideas, but you don't really know where the world is going to be or where you're going to be or where all these people are going to be by the time you get to the sort of the genesis of the art.

And to me, that's what makes it as magical as can be.

Rick:

Yeah.

What else would you like listeners to know about Quintessence or your upcoming season or how they can support you?

Alex Burns:

If everyone who cares about one of the facets of Quintessence were to come and engage with Quintessence as a whole, we would not have an empty seat in our theater ever.

We have a number of people who love the way we do Shakespeare, so they come to see that.

But they don't engage with the other work we do or people who love the way we do our French comedies or the people who love the Russian plays.

And I just wish more people would delight in the kind of buffet of classical theater that we offer over the course of a year and risk going to see a Chekhov, even if they think they hate Chekhov because the way we do Chekhov is not the way in which I think they think Chekhov would be done.

And I also just wish that people would dare to, we have I feel like a lot of closet fans who like love Quintessence, but because of this idea of classics as this heavy, heady thing, they don't make it like a social event for themselves and their friends.

And I wish there was a way that people would say like, you're not going to believe what's like this is stuff different than anything else that you're going to experience and come see what this group is doing and how they're doing it.

And I do think that there are a number of people who haven't visited us since the beginning when we really were just sitting in an old dark room to where we've come eight years later.

And I hope that those people will also come back and see how much we've grown and see us sort of finding our real power as artists, as storytellers, as members of this community.

Because I think that's, regardless of your personal sort of taste, I think that part of the journey is also really exciting to watch this happen to an organization and to a group of artists.

And I hope that that excitement continues to grow as we do.

Rick:

I hope so too.

Alex, thank you so much for sharing.

Alex Burns:

Thank you.

This has been lovely.

Rick:

For more about Alex Burns and Quintessence Theater Group, see the show notes or go to our website nwphillypodcast.net.

If you like the show, please tell a friend about it and send your comments and guest suggestions to Rick at nwphillypodcast.net.

I'm Rick Mohr.

Thanks for listening.

See you next time for more stories from Northwest Philly neighbors.