5 Questions with Brenna Geffers

As we emerge from the list-making season, if you asked me to come up with a list of indelible theater experiences in alternative spaces, “Pericles” staged on a huge model schooner, the Rose Dorothea, on the second floor of the Provincetown Library in 2017, and “The Hairy Ape,” played in the fish cannery on the Provincetown wharf in 2016, would be very high on my list. 

Brenna Geffers directed both productions, and I’m not sure I would name another director in the list twice.

Both productions were performed at the Provincetown Tennessee Williams Festival, where we relish the opportunities to see Geffers’ work every year on the last weekend of September. Thankfully, Brenna also has a local connection, and has done a number of productions and workshops with Troy Foundry Theatre.

Die-Cast, her theater company, has an instantly recognizable, deeply affecting and imaginative physical life. The actors in the company frequently appear to be sharing one breath – they all inhale and exhale together, and they can be frequently found moving in concert with one another, creating sculptural forms with their bodies moving together and in reaction to each other. It frequently creates unique, galvanizing stage pictures.

We are exceptionally lucky that this world-class director is wintering in Schenectady and offering a workshop on her staging methods this season. Everyone interested in new methods of staging theater should do anything they can to check out her workshop.

QUESTION: You and your company, Die-Cast, collaborate with many other companies. Can you talk about that? 

ANSWER: I live in Philadelphia but most of my work is done on the road these days, which I love. Most of my collective members also love to travel – see new places, meet new artists and create work in amazing new spaces. Sometimes we go to a festival or work with a group just once, which is great. But sometimes that collaboration extends beyond a single project, and we find ourselves returning to certain places project after project. Provincetown is like that. The Troy Foundry Theatre is like that, too. Our Die-Cast collective members affectionately call the artists at TFT our “cousins.” 

TFT co-founder David Girard and I both went to Temple University for our MFAs in directing, though at different times. As we were both directors who liked to experiment and were both very ensemble-minded, we would often find ourselves in long conversations (maybe debates) about theater. We were commiserating one night – TFT had to postpone a summer project and D-C had just canceled a piece when the festival tried to lower our commission fee at the 11th hour – which is the worst. So together we both had a solution to each other’s predicament. 

I brought some of my collective members up to Troy and he brought in some of their ensemble members to restage this really lovely immersive “La Ronde” at the Frear House. We all had such a good time working together that we immediately wanted to do it again. We made “Ilium Was” together at the Collar Works Gallery after TFT co-founder Emily Curro had a dream about singing in a red dress. Then we did this wild piece called “Yellow” in the Trojan Hotel. Sometimes that is still one of my favorite spaces we have ever worked in. 

Developing work with different companies over a longer period of time is really such a special thing. Like with TFT, you can experiment, grow, and discover together, and hopefully leave better than how you arrived. We are so grateful for that. 

Q: Where did you discover and develop your unique movement and staging ideas?

A: Thank you for saying they are unique! I guess it’s a combination of things, really. I love working with bodies in space. I am really interested in how physicality can tell us something that text isn’t capable of. I love ensemble-driven work. So, it’s out of a desire to pursue these things that I started to experiment and learn. My work with Die-Cast has definitely been inspired by learning from methods like Suzuki, Le Coq, Attis Theatre, Slava Theatre and Primitive Voice work. New Paradise Laboratories and the Wilma Theater in Philadelphia both had a big impact on me. These methods get all jumbled up together to make our company’s warmups and exercises, which is how we build a lot of work. Sometimes we look at specific paintings and images to inspire us. Sometimes it comes from contact improv with the group. Sometimes I plan images and gestures ahead of time. Sometimes they are made in the moment with the performers. Sometimes the actors create them. It really is a collage. And it is, I hope, ever-evolving. 

Q: What will you be doing up here in the Capital Region? 

A: As I mentioned, I normally live in Philly, but I do tend to wander. While I am here I will be working with Union College’s directing students. I am also working on and writing a show with a Capital Region actor that I can’t announce yet, but it will be really beautiful, joyful, and sad – just like theater should be. I will be working on a Die-Cast piece that we will take to a festival this summer, so I am looking forward to making some of my company members come up here and be cold with me. 

I am also running some public workshops to experiment with some things Die-Cast is curious about but hasn’t had the opportunity to spend some time in the studio with. We will be working with some physical storytelling exercises. These workshops are “Pay What You Like,” so I hope some 518 folks will join us. Go to www.die-castphilly.org to learn more and register. 

Q: What do you see as great opportunities in the theater world post-pandemic?

A: We have a great opportunity at this moment if we choose to take it. We have the chance to reject the status quo in favor of creating better art. We have the opportunity to expand our whole art form by not sidelining the vast majority of voices and artists. 

Theater is missing so many artists. Artists who were supposed to be here but got pushed out by white supremacy, sexism and homophobia. Imagine how much better our theater would be, how richer our texts would be and how more imaginative our art would be if we had not let so many artists get sidelined. But we chose to be close-minded and spiteful, and theater has suffered for it. We have the chance to remedy that and start to build better art. I hope we take it. I really do. 

Q: What is a play that changed your life and how. 

A: “Equus.” I read it when I was in the seventh grade and I could not believe it. I had never read anything so sacred, so profane, so beautiful. It made me seek out more nonmusical plays. I mean, I had “Cats,” “Phantom” and such on vinyl growing up. But this was different. Dysart and his conundrum stayed with me and so, in college, I decided I had to direct it. My professors were skeptical but thought I would learn from the utter failure such a big project would certainly be. And I do not mean to brag, but it was amazing* (for a teenager’s first full-length show). 

After that experience I knew I was going to be a director for the rest of my life. 

The close runner-up would be “Pippin.” But I can never stage that because Bob Fosse’s production was perfect. And no other need be done.