Before Herringbone rehearsals began at McCarter, actor BD Wong and director Roger Rees discussed their thoughts on the play, collaboration, and the mysteries of performing, with literary manager Carrie Hughes.

BD Wong in Herringbone. Photo by Joan Marcus.

CH: BD, you’re very passionate about this play, and I did not know until Roger told us today, that you’d first seen it at Playwrights Horizons as an usher. I was wondering if you could talk about the experience of seeing this play for the first time.

BDW: I was very fresh off the plane from San Francisco to New York to be an actor. I had been in one of my first shows, at the Equity Library Theater, in the chorus of a musical called Applause. The stage manager of that production took me to Playwrights Horizons to teach me how to be a volunteer usher, because that’s how you see free shows. And we saw Herringbone. I don’t know how to describe it. I just have this very strong sense that, one, I felt I would never forget it, and two, that I connected to it. Also, part of my experience as a high school actor was exploring multi-character work. I did a fair amount of work with forensics, in which actors took ten-minute cuttings of plays, and the more characters you could do, the more interesting it would be and you would win. So part of my sensibility at that time was doing all these characters. I just thought it was cool and it was very normal to me. So I saw it and took to it.

The next part of the story is probably nine or ten years later. I first met Richie Jackson, who I ended up being in a committed relationship with for fifteen years. He had just come from a producing program at NYU and way back then-this was 1989-on one of our first dates he said, “well, what [project] do you want to do?” The first thing that came out of my mouth was, “There’s this show I saw at Playwrights; it’s called Herringbone. It’s very weird and interesting and I loved it so much. I’ve never heard anything about it since then and it must be almost ten years now. Don’t know anything about it-don’t know who wrote it, don’t know anything.” And romantically enough, the next day, in my dressing room (I was in M. Butterfly then), was a copy of the script. And that’s when I fell in love! The two of us spent a good part of our relationship looking for a home for it. I did a small production of it at the American Music Theater Festival in Philadelphia, and then in 2007 when Roger was working at Williamstown, we made the connection and I kind of seduced Roger into doing it.

CH: And Roger, when BD brought you this piece, what made you decide to produce and direct this particular play?

RR: Well, from an economic point of view when you’re running a theater, a one-man show with a three piece orchestra, and it being a musical too, is a very, very attractive proposition. But really I thought we should see BD do it, because no one really knows that this is his other side. We see him as a very serious actor, and maybe we’ve seen him in some musicals and things, but never carrying a musical in this way. But I know he can do this stuff-this tour-de-force aspect of his abilities. It’s thrilling to see one person achieve such an extraordinary thing. Today we listened to him do a reading of it, but if you can imagine the dynamic of doing everything else the story suggests emotionally, it’s a wonderful, wonderful thing. And also singing on pitch! I’m amazed.

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Herringbone costume designer William Ivey Long is one of the most talented and prolific designers in the American Theater, currently represented on Broadway by three musicals (Chicago, Hairspray and Young Frankenstein) and about to see another two productions open soon on the Great White Way (Pal Joey and 9 to 5). His luminous career began at Yale School of Drama, where he was roommates with Sigourney Weaver. Yeah.

This five-time Tony Award winner (and 11 time nominee) has been the subject of museum exhibits and New York Times profiles, and is one of the most sought-after costume designers in the country for his vibrant, eccentric, and unforgettable pieces. You will recognize his work in Curtains, Grey Gardens, The Producers, and the most recent revival of Cabaret, as well as Siegfried & Roy at the Mirage Hotel.

His last McCarter costume design was for The Royal Family in the 1995-1996 season, and we’re absolutely thrilled to have him back to design the costumes for Herringbone. As always, he’s got a few tricks up his sleeve.

Posted by Adam Immerwahr, Producing Associate at McCarter Theatre.

Roger Rees is a Welsh-American film and television star who is also a formidable theater actor and director, and is directing McCarter Theatre’s production of Herringbone. Also, he was on “Cheers” and “The West Wing” (possibly my favorite television show). Here’s a clip from “Cheers,” in which he shows off his Shakespearean chops (after all, he used to be an actor for the Royal Shakespeare Company):

Posted by Adam Immerwahr, Producing Associate at McCarter Theatre.

If you have ever been near a TV in you’re life, you’ve undoubtedly seen an episode of “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,” NBC’s police procedural drama about the 16th Precinct of the New York City Police Department. BD Wong (who stars in McCarter’s upcoming production of Herringbone) plays Dr. George Huang, an FBI agent and psychiatrist, in the popular TV series. Here’s a little video about his character:

If you want to watch more clips from the show, you can watch them on Hulu, NBC’s ad-supported online video service. The new season of “SVU” starts on September 23, 2008 at 10:00pm on NBC.

Posted by Adam Immerwahr, Producing Associate at McCarter Theatre.

Marc Damon Johnson and Keith Chappelle in the 2007 McCarter IN-Festival production of The Brothers Size, photo by Frank Wojciechowski

Our final show of the season, the world premiere of The Brother/Sister Plays, is written by an extremely exciting young playwright. Tarell Alvin McCraney is a recent Yale School of Drama grad and has already received a number of awards, including the Whiting Writers’ Award and the inaugural Paula Vogel Playwriting Award. (In other words, he makes me feel very unaccomplished.)

In The Brother/Sister Plays, McCraney weaves southern rhythms and Yoruban culture into modern-day urban stories. The result is a piece full of kinship, heartache, family, and legacy—epic in scope but still rich and intimate.

McCarter’s production of The Brother/Sister Plays is sort of a two-fer. Well, actually, it’s more like a three-fer. But really, it’s all one show. Confused? Let me explain.

The “three” comes from the fact that The Brother/Sister Plays is a trilogy comprised of three separate plays: In the Red and Brown Water, The Brothers Size, and Marcus; or The Secret of Sweet. Each play can stand on its own, but when performed together, they also form one cohesive, emotionally resonant unit. For example, all three plays take place in the same fictional Louisiana town, and many characters appear in multiple plays.

Which brings me to the “two.” As you can imagine, three plays back to back would make up a considerable running time. And no matter how engrossing the show may be, I don’t think there are many people who’d want to park themselves in one seat for an entire day.

So, the solution was to split the plays up into two halves. In the Red and Brown Water makes up Part 1, while Part 2 will consist of The Brothers Size and Marcus; or The Secret of Sweet.

Three plays, two evenings, one theater. Got it?

Here’s how it all breaks down:

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Edwin Austin Abbey’s 1899 painting “O Mistress Mine,” inspired by Twelfth Night.

The fourth show of our Theater Season, William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, runs from March 8 to March 29 in the Matthews Theatre. This production, co-produced with the Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington, D.C., will be directed by Rebecca Taichman. It’s been four seasons since McCarter produced a Shakespeare play (the last being A Midsummer Night’s Dream in 2005), and we’re all kinds of excited for this production. It’s a little ways off, so you’ll hear lots about the wonders to be found in Ms. Taichman’s production here in the months to come; meanwhile, there’s a lot to love about the history of this play.

If you’ve seen different works by Shakespeare, there’s a few patterns and tricks that start to emerge. He was a fan of high seas adventure, sometimes involving pirates and/or shipwrecks (Hamlet; The Tempest); he successfully mined mistaken identity and identical twins to comedic effect (The Comedy of Errors); he astutely noted the abilities of a clown or fool to say truths more serious characters could not (King Lear); he understood the humor to be found when loud characters and alcohol combine (A Midsummer Night’s Dream; The Merry Wives of Windsor; Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2); he liberally indulged in the use of cross-dressed characters (As You Like It; Cymbeline; The Merchant of Venice; The Merry Wives of Windsor; A Midsummer Night’s Dream…okay, he really liked to use that one). These, and quite a few more, were staples of Shakespeare’s storytelling toolbox.

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