Chautauqua Theater Company Drama League FutureNow Directing Fellows, from left, Britt Berke, Karl Michael Iglesias and Stefan Dezil.
Chautauqua Theater Company’s Drama League FutureNow Directing Fellows, along with the talents of the 2024 CTC design fellows and acting conservatory, bring “A Night of One-Acts,” for one night only, to the grounds at 7:30 p.m. Saturday in Bratton Theater.
Directing Fellows Britt Berke, Karl Michael Iglesias and Stefan Dezil each selected a one-act play to bring to life with the Conservatory Actors and put their leadership into action. The plays, María Irene Fornés’ Springtime, José Rivera’s Charlotte and Bill Harris’ Every Goodbye Ain’t Gone, will offer Chautauquans a night of reflection and storytelling.
In a new partnership with The Drama League, the leading New York City-based theater development association and TheaterWorksUSA, CTC gives emerging stage directors the opportunity to direct several projects, assist on mainstage productions, and collaborate with professional artists to grow their skills.
Iglesias, who served as associate director of CTC’s mainstage production of Noah Haidle’s Birthday Candles, is one of the first Directing Fellows to be completing two Drama League fellowships, as he recently finished the Irene Gandy Directing Assistantship.
“Before theater, I’m mainly an author as well as an actor, so I kind of found my way into directing by putting those passions together with new work development, verse work — like Shakespeare and how poetry and hip-hop find its way onto stages,” he said.
Iglesias is of Puerto Rican descent, and chose Puerto Rican playwright Rivera’s Charlotte, which follows two strangers, Felix (played by Conservatory Actor Jaucqir LaFond) and Charlotte (played by Conservatory Actor Amara Leonard), in a New York City storm. As Felix invites Charlotte, who is homeless, into his apartment to escape the weather, the play explores the complicated issues of housing in America and the importance of showing compassion for others.
“It begs us to consider what makes us dangerous or vulnerable in the pursuit of our basic needs, whatever they may be, which has all been very exciting to me,” he said.
Berke, who counts Fornés as her favorite playwright and has worked on her plays before, lunged at the chance to stage Springtime, a story of love between two women (played by Conservatory Actors Maria Fernanda Diez and Kay Benson) and the man who comes between them (Conservatory Actor Kamal Sehrawy).
A graduate of Barnard College of Columbia University who will serve as associate director of CTC’s The Light and The Dark, Berke said the play is about the beauty and pain of love and how it can alter our perceptions of the world and each other.
“I’m working to make the rehearsal process one of care, empathy, light and love — because the play is about love, and about how it is both gorgeous and terrifying,” she said. “Those ideas are being centered in the rehearsal room.”
Dezil, who also served as the associate director of CTC’s production of Lynn Nottage’s Fabulation, has developed film work for nine years and studied theater at Carnegie Mellon University. The play he chose, Every Goodbye Ain’t Gone, centers a singer (Conservatory Actor Sarah-Michele Guei) and a soldier (Conservatory Actor Martin K. Lewis) who fall in love at a bar. It follows their relationship as it degrades over the course of two years, and as the story moves forward, the soldier recounts to PTSD he developed not from war, but from his toxic relationship.
“There are personal demons that they are wrestling with that drove them away from each other, but they are trying everything they can do to stay together in spite of that, and I think that’s what attracted me to the story,” he said.
As Berke, Iglesias and Dezil reflect on their directing journey at Chautauqua and the connections they made within the theater company, Berke said she hopes “A Night of One-Acts” will showcase their passions, highlight the work of the conservatory and spark conversations.
“I feel that our plays are our dreams coming to life,” she said. “They are very good encapsulations of the things that we are fascinated by; they’re little periscopes into the ideas that we care about in theater and in life. So I hope our plays inspire other people to dream — maybe in similar ways that we dream.”
