Tag Archives: Director

Interview

Rogues: Tales from the Valley

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Actor/director/producer Lyda Woods is preparing for her next production, “Rogues: Tales from the Valley,” based on her satiric mystery, serialized in the Tuesday edition of the Ashland Daily Tidings. It is a take-off on the San Francisco Chronicle’s 1980s “Tales of the City” by Armistead Maupin, which was later turned into a PBS series. A staged reading starts at 2:30 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday, Feb. 7 and 8, at Paschal Winery and Vineyard. Woods and I got together, on a rainy winter day, at the Black Sheep restaurant in Ashland.

LW: ”Tales of the City” explored San Francisco at a very critical time: San Francisco was becoming a Mecca for alternative life styles. I loved that series, and it always stuck with me.
I would really love to explore the characters that make up the Rogue Valley, and there are so many of them. Each character is not based on any one person, but a mosaic based on experience and imagination. I’m looking at how these characters can transform. I see the Rogue Valley as one organism. I wanted to explore how we are all interconnected and what that means. There are so many micro-cultures, yet we are interdependent. I want to be entertaining and grab the audience.

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Interview

Doug Ham

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Doug Ham
Doug Ham

Doug Ham is directing “A Christmas Carol: The Musical” for Teen Musical Theater of Oregon (TMTO), opening this Friday, Dec.12, at The Craterian Theater in Medford. Throughout his career, Ham has delved into many aspects theater including acting, directing and designing. One afternoon, we met at Boulevard Coffee in Ashland to discuss his latest project.

DH: It’s a really nice, different approach to “A Christmas Carol.” It’s all there, but adding musical and dance numbers just gives it more oomph. There are 49 Teen Musical Theater of Oregon students in the cast. It’s a 90-minute show with tons of scenes, tons of costumes and tons of choreography.

EH: What is it about Charles Dickens’ story “A Christmas Carol” that rings so true?

DH: It shows that at Christmas you can let loose of all of the stuff around you and just see the joy of it. It’s a time when everybody gets together.

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Interview

Jacky Apodaca

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Jackie Apodaca
Jackie Apodaca

Jackie Apodaca directs “The Drunken City” by Adam Bock, now playing at Southern Oregon University’s Center Square Theatre. Cesar Perez Rosas and Samuel L. Wick play Frank and Eddie, two young bar-crawlers who hook up with three girls on a bride/bachelorette party binge. Perez Rosas and Wick are both in their fifth year at SOU, pursuing bachelor of fine arts degrees. Both will be interns at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival next fall. The three of us met at Starbucks near the SOU Campus.

EH: Tell me about the play.

JA: Thematically, it’s about identity, what happens when you’re on a path, and you realize that it’s not the right one. Occasionally, the role that you’re playing will smack up against who you are or what you really want to do. In this case we’re looking at bride-mania.
I believe that now, women in our culture are under a great deal of pressure to play the role of being a bride, walking down the aisle and bringing everyone’s expectations to life as they fulfill that role. Although I did discover that spending on weddings has not increased over the last five or six years, from about 1989 to about 1995, there was a huge run-up where it quadrupled. Now on average, in this country, people spend about $22,000 on their wedding. It was about six or seven grand in the late ’80s, so it did a big jump, but now it has sort of settled. Continue reading Jacky Apodaca →

Interview

Obed Medina

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Obed Medina
Obed Medina

Obed Medina’s direction of Yasmina Reza’s unsettling comedy “God of Carnage” at Peter Wycliffe’s new Thanks For the Memories Theatre was truly phenomenal. Medina, a writer and theater critic, works with Audience Development at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. We met for lunch at Martino’s Restaurant.

EH: How did this production happen?

OM: I like to direct. I was looking for projects when Peter Wycliffe approached me about doing the “God of Carnage.” I thought it was an interesting play. I thought it would play best in a small house with people close to the action. I didn’t know if it was going to work. I thought it might be a little too risky, a little too weird for people .…
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Interview

Bob Herried

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Bob Herried
Bob Herried

Bob Herried is directing the romantic comedy “The Owl and the Pussycat,” opening March 7 at the Randall Theatre in Medford. I first saw Herried as Marco the Magnificent in “Carnival” at the Camelot Theatre in 2004. Herried is a University of Oregon graduate in theater and business. Born and raised in the Rogue Valley, Herried has been performing and directing for 40 years. We met in his office at Addictions Recovery Center in Medford, where he is a drug and alcohol counselor.

EH: When you cast a play, what do you look for in your actors, and how do you relate to them?

BH: It’s the ability to take direction, the ability to change. A lot of times an actor will come in and read a line, and a week later, read it the same way. Rehearsal is the time to explore, to try different intentions, to play with the language and the character instead of trusting the first instinct: an actor who can adapt and move around with the ability to find the nuances. “The Owl and the Pussycat” is a show that has more nuances than anything that I have seen in a long time because the relationship between these two people is unique. These two are as opposite as can be.

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Interview

Dianna Warner

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Dianna Warner
Dianna Warner

Currently playing at the Randall Theatre Company of Medford is “The Odd Couple: The Female Version,” written by Neil Simon and directed by Dianna Warner. Warner, a talented actor and singer, most recently was featured in the Randall’s “Man of La Mancha.” We met for lunch along with Mike, her husband of 40 years, at the Wild Goose in Ashland.

EH: I’ve enjoyed many of your performances through the years, but you also direct?

DW: I taught for 36 years, and for most of those years, I directed students in high school and middle school. I also directed two plays, “Shakespeare in Hollywood” and “Lend Me a Tenor,” at the Camelot Theatre.

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Interview

Gwen Overland

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Gwen Overland
Gwen Overland

Gwen Overland and Doug Warner wrote and directed the “Old Time Traveling Radio Show,” which continues with the Next Stage Repertory Company Friday and Saturday at the Craterian Theater in Medford.

With a doctorate in theater arts and clinical psychology and a master’s degree in music, Overland teaches psychology at Rogue Community College and works as an expressive voice coach. We visited at Boulevard Coffee in Ashland one afternoon.

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