An Interview With Drew Schoenborn

Recently, I sat down with the director of Action, one of the shows in A Night of Sam Shepard.

AR: What were some challenges in the script that you had to work with?

DS: An initial challenge with script was trying to make the show accessible for audiences that might otherwise be turned off by the abstract language that Sam Shepard writes with. Shepard writes with beautiful imagery that I wanted everyone to be able to appreciate. It was a challenge to make sure that the show was grounded in something that could be relatable without losing the impacts of language, but hopefully we, as an ensemble, have been able to overcome that and have been able to let Shepard’s language shine.

 

AR: What is different about this show?

DS: This show is unique from the other shows I have directed during my time at Whitman, in that Action does not have a apparent path to take in how it is performed. Many of the shows I have directed in the past it was apparent where they were heading from the moment the play touched my hands, but Action asked more questions and offered more possibilities in terms of its atmosphere.

 

AR: How did you begin to conceptualize the characters and course of this show?

DS: I remember the first time I read through Action, I thought

Sarah Edwards and Annie Roge acted as Jeep and Shooter in Action.
Sarah Edwards and Annie Roge acted as Jeep and Shooter in Action.

it was one of the most depressing plays I have ever encountered. I told this to Kristen Kosmas, who had recommended the script to me, and her reaction is still seared in my brain. She was so surprised because she had seen Shepard’s work as a play that was about the warmth of friendship. Any semblance of friendship or kindness in the script was not apparent to me in the slightest, so I read the play again. I was in awe, because with that lens it became an entirely different play. With each new reading of the play, the image became more and more clear of the world that Shepard had created. I wouldn’t say it was necessarily a difficult process to craft this image, but rather one that took a lot of attention and care to the infinite possibilities that Action has to offer.