22
iiry 5.2001
It was difficult,
though, to explore
queer culture. “I
felt like I was living
in a world o f ‘ don’t
ask, d o n i tell.11
know there's a
queer culture there;
it's just so under
ground I wasn't
able to find it...."
— Stephanie
Mulligan
Dream. Both he and Browning were
appointed as cultural specialists by the
U.S. State Department, which partially
funded the project.
Mulligan, 45, has been with ART for
most of its 19 years, managing, designing
and directing. The Washington, D.C.,
native has an impressive theater résumé
that includes 20 years in stage manage
ment around the Pacific Northwest and
at A C T in San Francisco. She has been
a guest lecturer on stage management in
New York, D.C. and Oregon, and she
acted as stage manager for the Vietnam
productions.
“Allen and Lorelle wanted very
much to bring a production stage man
ager as well as a scenic and lighting
designer,” Mulligan explained. “I hap
pen to be all three!”
Left: Celebrating
Corresponding via e-mail for several
Thanksgiving 2000 in
weeks, Mulligan described her experi
Ho Chi Minh City
ences
to Just Out. Her 20-plus-year
(Stephanie Mulligan is
background was invaluable, but she
third from the right)
admitted, “The challenges in collaborat
ing on a project of this scope have been
Below left: Laura and
enormous.”
her Gentleman Caller
First, there were the obvious lan
take on a new look
guage barriers, plus there was only one
fluent actor/translator. Mulligan and
several others know enough Vietnamese to get around the
city but not to direct a production. Most of the Vietnamese
involved were at about that same level of English.
During rehearsal for the bilingual, co-directed
Midsummer, both the U .S. and Vietnamese directors pro
duced notes, which had to be translated into the other’s lan
guage clearly enough so the concepts were understood by
the cast and crew. It was a long and tedious process.
But once the language barriers were broken and the
actors understood the direction, they were able to execute
the lines “as well and as professionally in either tongue,”
Mulligan observed. “T h at’s where you see that art is the
common ground.”
As stage manager, Mulligan’s tasks were numerous. She
worked with the director “from the first rehearsal to opening
night,” she explained, “after which every aspect of the show
was under my supervision until closing night.”
by Lisa B radshaw
Mulligan was responsible for all the lighting, sound and
scenery cues as well as direction to the actors regarding
lines, tempo and positioning. “ Really, everything that makes
The project was founded by Lorelle Browning, associate pro
the production work smoothly.”
fessor of literature and peace studies at Pacific University, in
She had to convey her own stage direction working around
partnership with Artists Repertory Theatre and Vietnam’s Cen
language, showing the crew what she wanted instead of saying
tral Dramatic Company. The exchange includes two stage pro
it. (Although, she said, “They all knew my key phrases in Eng
ductions with both U.S. and Vietnamese actors and various the
lish: ‘Take five’ or the dreaded ‘One more time!’ ”)
ater workshops.
The theater culture of Vietnam added to the difficulty of
ART’s artistic director, Allen Nause, became the first U.S.
understanding Mulligan’s production orders. “Stage manage
citizen to direct a play in Vietnam. Along with Mulligan and
ment is unheard of here,” she said.
two Vietnamese directors, he staged a Vietnamese language pro
Instead, senior actors function as company managers but
duction of Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie and a bilin
do not direct lighting or sound cues. “The operators just run
gual production of William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s
the cues however they see fit,” she remarked.
TING ON
ISTORY
Theater exchange promotes
diplomatic relations with Vietnam
rowing up in the ’60s and 70s, all I
knew about Vietnam was what I saw on
television. War, poverty, sadness,” says
Stephanie Mulligan of Portland’s Artists
Repertory Theatre.
However, she spent the past three months getting to know
Vietnam a whole lot better. She just returned home after taking
part in the Vietnam America Theatre Exchange, the first ever
artistic collaboration between the United States and Vietnam.
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