We are thrilled to have the incredibly talented and multi-faceted Karen Hines joining us this year for the Creation and Performance Master Class: Creating New Work Without Killing It. We asked Karen a few questions about her current projects, her process for creating new work and where she finds artistic inspiration.
1. Can you tell us what you are working on right now?
I’m currently writing three new plays – very unusual for me. I’m typically much more myopic. One of them is taking primo position as its first deadlines loom. Its working title is “The Bechdel Fail: Women Talking About Whatever it is Women Talk About.” It’s inspired by Alison Bechdel’s “Bechdel Test” which, if you don’t know it, is an amazing piece of thought. The next one up is “Crawlspace,” a solo; site specific – the performance happens at a dining table. It’s a true horror story about a real estate deal gone horribly wrong – I call it “Theatre of Realty.” The third is secret for now.
2. Do you have a method or a ritual that you go through when creating new works, or does it change from project to project?
I keep trying new things but come back to the same thing: write anything by hand until I’m exhausted and/or something leaps up off the page, demanding to be placed in context. Usually, something leaps up first. When inspiration flees, as it will even after a fantastic three or four hours of actual writing, I read, read, read. Good stuff. Always, something someone else thought makes me think, wow, I wish I’d thought of that. Then I find myself thinking more … and that carries into the next day. I wish I could write by outline but my outlines often come last. It never gets easier, it’s never obvious, it’s never a straight line, and for me and it always comes down to: put the pen to the paper, computer standing by.
3. You have filled many roles in theatre including director, writer and actor. Do you feel the process in relation to performance creation differs for each role and if so how?
It’s absolutely different for each, though the goal is common. As a director of original work, my role is to help realize the ideas, desires and inspirations of my collaborators, then to vivify them. As a writer, my role is to have that vision and those ideas and communicate them clearly so others can share, participate, be inspired (literally – to be enlivened by them). As an actor my role is to understand, interpret, respect and gently give life to that which is nascent. These descriptions are what happen in optimal situations but so many thing can go wonky, even in the most brilliant hands – it is everyone’s responsibility to keep the horse from bucking everyone off, which is what this course is about.
4. Who has inspired you as an artist?
Lately Jennifer Egan. She’s a novelist (A Visit from the Goon Squad) but the way she talks about creation is so honest and real she hates but embraces the pain of creation. Also, I am very lucky – many of my dearest friends are my inspirations.
Join us for the creation and performance masterclass in November and learn from the award winning writer, director, performer Karen Hines.