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ARTicles vol. 7 i.2a: The Two Annes
OCT 1, 2008
Gideon Lester introduces Anne Washburn and Anne Kauffman, the writer and the director of The Communist Dracula Pageant.
The premiere of The Communist Dracula Pageant at the A.R.T. this fall reunites two of the rising stars of the American theatre – playwright Anne Washburn and director Anne Kauffman. (Anne Kauffman luckily pronounces her name “Annie,” which prevents total confusion in rehearsals!)
Anne Washburn is one of my favorite young playwrights. In plays such as The Internationalist, The Ladies, and Apparition, she has revealed a wonderfully theatrical imagination, far removed from the realism and family dramas that currently dominate American and British playwriting.
Anne’s plays are purely theatrical; it’s hard to imagine them adapted as scripts for film or television. She delights in stage illusion, in ghosts, fantasies, and figments of our imagination, and is not afraid of grand subjects and themes – the fall of nations in The Communist Dracula Pageant, the Book of Jeremiah in I Have Loved Strangers. Her style reminds me somewhat of early Caryl Churchill, and she has something of Tony Kushner’s epic and historical sweep (Kushner taught her playwriting at NYU) but ultimately her voice is unique.
Anne is a member of 13P, the renowned collective of New York playwrights who have been pooling their talents and resources to produce one play for each of the thirteen writers. Her 13P production was of The Internationalist, a strange and beautiful comedy about the disorientation of foreign travel, which won rave reviews in New York and was subsequently staged at the Gate Theatre in London. Her plays have been developed by many Off- and Off-off Broadway theatres, and she is currently writing under commission from the Yale Repertory Theatre and The Civilians.
Anne Kauffman has made her name as one of this country’s leading directors of new plays. A recent profile in American Theatre magazine noted, “If New York is the epicenter of new plays in America, then near the center of that center stands director Anne Kauffman.”
A list of her recent productions reads like a Who’s Who of America’s most successful young writers; she has directed world premieres by, among many others, Adam Bock (The Thugs, for which Anne won an OBIE Award), Jenny Schwartz (God’s Ear), David Adjmi (Stunning), Anne Marie Healy (Have You Seen Steve Steven, also a 13P production), Jordan Harrison (Act a Lady), and Dan LeFranc (60 Miles to Silver Lake). “For me the perfect collaboration is discovering the play together – charting new territory,” she told American Theatre. “I’m on a crusade. These texts need to be mainstream theatre. These plays need to be what American theatre is.”
The two Annes first collaborated on Washburn’s play The Ladies, which Kauffman directed for The Civilians, the award-winning ensemble of which she is a founding member. The Ladies featured the two Annes themselves (portrayed by actresses) as they struggled to make sense of the lives of four dicators’ wives, Imelda Marcos, Eva Peron, Madame Mao, and Elena Ceausescu (who reappears center-stage in The Communist Dracula Pageant). The production garnered critical raves for its bold experimentation and sense of fun, and transferred to the prestigious Off-Broadway Cherry Lane Theatre.
Between them the two Annes represent the best of young American theatre, and it’s a delight to be presiding over their first collaboration in several years.
Gideon Lester is the A.R.T.’s Director, 08/09 Season.
