Humility and Confidence
Steven D’Agustino: [00:00:00] Hello, my name is Steve D’Agustino and my cohost Anne Fernald and I welcome you to the Twice Over Podcast because to teach is to learn twice over. In this episode, Humility and Confidence, we are joined by Karin Coonrod, theater director, writer, and teacher at Yale School of Drama, who shares her thoughts about creativity, learning, and leading.
Anne Fernald: Welcome back to the Twice Over podcast. It’s really wonderful to have you all here. And we are delighted, just super delighted that today’s podcast brings us our guest Karin Coonrod. She is a director, a writer, the founder of two different theater companies. She also teaches at the Yale school of drama.
Anne: And this season we’ve been talking a lot about leadership and I got so curious to ask a [00:01:00] director about questions of leadership and higher education from the perspective of someone who works in the theater. So Karin, thank you so much for being willing to talk to us today and welcome. Pleasure. Thank you.
Anne: Great to be here. So can you tell us a little bit about your path to becoming a director? Did you always imagine that being the way that you’d participate in theater?
Karin Coonrod: No, I didn’t know. I was not in a theater family whatsoever. My mother was Italian. And my father, American, and I studied literature, but everything that I did as a child was painting, dance, music.
Karin: I played the piano and the flute. I was thinking about going into piano. And so all these things, and I, a writer, lots of writing, actually journalism. And then it wasn’t until after college that it all swirled together into, you know, visions of directing. And it was in Epidaurus, I think how you say [00:02:00] it in Greek, but Epidaurus, I, I did teach in a boys ‘school for a few years.
Karin: And I was there in Epidaurus and the theater known as the Theatron, the place of scene, the scene place. And yet it was the hearing. I was just astonished and I felt the call to go in and you
Anne: really had a good food or you really had a revelation. Didn’t you? Yeah.
Karin: Yes, for sure. This is it. And I had seen, I was teaching in this boy’s school.
Karin: teaching English and AP literature and all that. And I was thinking about going into theater. I was directing the, the musicals and directing the plays there. In fact, when I got the job, he said, “do you want to, would you take over the theater? And without, Any training?” I just said, “yes, I’ll take it over.”
Karin: And we started doing all kinds of things. [00:03:00] Shenandoah, my fair lady in a boy’s school, uh, fiddler on the roof. It was great. And then the last show that I did, there was Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. And it was, I set it in the gymnasium because it was a, because all boys, and I went to see a couple of basketball games and I thought that place in the where those tall boys jumped for the ball.
Karin: Ball. I said, I’m going to start the play right there. And that’s where the narrator is going to open the play. And we were all seated in stadium seating in the round around that spot so that it would resonate always not just a basketball, but also a theater.
Anne: Wow. So you gave them a new way of thinking about that space, but you also Infuse the production with all the drama of a jump ball at the opening, at the opening whistle of a ball game.
Anne: So it was, that’s a real, that’s a real stroke of genius. That’s something that’s [00:04:00] characterized your career, right? Is changing settings and moving that. Can you talk a little bit about why that interests you and how you get your. brainstorms to say I’m going to do the Merchant of Venice in the Jewish ghetto.
Anne: I’m going to do this in the basketball court. Can you talk a little bit about how you do that?
Karin: Yeah, I, I, I guess it’s just taking that idea of the seeing place and shifting the angle of the view and So that we can keep ahead of an audience. The worst thing is the audience is so bored when they’re sitting back.
Karin: I remember George Wolf used to talk about that. He said, either you lean forward and you’re really into it or you’re leaning. You’re saying, Oh yeah, okay. Got it. And we all know what that’s like. So no, shifting the angle, shifting the viewing. And for instance, yes, going to Orvieto, Italy and doing the medieval mystery plays.
Karin: Right across the city in an itinerant fashion was really a joy. The plays, [00:05:00] who knows exactly, they say they were on carts, they were on whatever, they could be stationary, whatever. But for me, it felt it. And that was in 2004 and that was the start of my second company, Colombari, which is still in existence.
Karin: Were just celebrated 20 years this year. But 2004 on June 10th, we. greeted our audience in the street and it was free and they were the English from the English cycles of the medieval mystery plays but translated into Italian so that they could be greeted for the Italians could and then we sang all the songs in English or in Latin or in Hebrew so the songs were not in Italian but Because it was really like Fra Angelico, the iconography of Italy, meeting the pulse of America.
Karin: So these two, like Fra Angelico and Mahalia Jackson coming together.
Anne: That’s wonderful. Wow. I wish I could have seen that. That’s [00:06:00] incredible.
Karin: There’s some amazing, I mean, it was astonishing. We did it three years and we started in a little street. We then went to the Duomo, this incredible Duomo in Orvieto where Trazana Beverly one year, she won the Tony award for colored girls in the late seventies.
Karin: Yeah, and then she played God. He was a di o donna. They loved her because she did, actually, a James Weldon Johnson piece in English. That was in English, because I didn’t want to translate it. I thought the pulse of that was so strong. And it’s the, from the God’s trombones, the creation, and I, and God stepped out on space and said, I’m lonely.
Karin: I’ll make me a man. So it was so powerful, so powerful. And from there, we went to a parking lot where we cleared the most radical thing we did was just clear spaces of cars and just fill them with people. So that’s [00:07:00] very radical in the, in the old idea of that word, which is it’s. goes to the root of filling the spaces with people rather than other things, when roots being a culture that is full of really towards radical presence.
Karin: That’s what really what I’m working on in the theater, especially with all these distractions and all these things going on and all these rumors and lies and who knows what goes on. What is spoken and that we’re not. So greeting our people and moving with them and finding the crowd growing
Karin: to cross the traverse, this whole city of, or little city of Orvieto, it’s a very little city, but go to these iconic places.
Karin: And then, and at the cliff was just phenomenal. It was just phenomenal. And we. threw flower petals over all the audience, little flowers. And it was very special. People grew, had grown and grown. And then [00:08:00] everybody was there, all kinds of folks. And we did that 2004, 2005, 2006. We’re trying to revisit it in some fashion and who knows so many things.
Karin: Yeah. So in terms of other places like the Jewish ghetto, I was, invited into that. And by the time word gets out in the, okay, so she likes Shakespeare and she’s half Italian and she works in Italy and she likes outdoor spaces. So how about doing the, The Merchant of Venice. In this conjunction of anniversaries of the 500th anniversary of the founding of the Jewish ghetto, the first ghetto in the whole world, with the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death, and it was David Kastan who wrote to me when I was with Visiting family in Hawaii and I got this letter in January of 2014, this email, and I said, Oh my God, that sounds, [00:09:00] yes, that sounds fantastic.
Karin: And I was a little, I was, Certainly, I found it’s an incendiary play, as we know, and of course, uh, my husband’s Jewish, and I’m, I call myself Judeo Christian, but I’m not Jewish, but, so, America, coming to the ghetto, not Jewish girl, so I had to think this through, how to strategize and make this, because Americans, Coming to, and that was in 2016.
Karin: And I thought, and thought we, it all worked out beautifully, but we had five shylocks. I did not wanna have a star to have Al Pacino reprise it. He probably wouldn’t have had time anyway. But I was not interested in that. I idea. I was interested in the five scenes of Shylock and the 500 years and the five books of the Torah and the 5 5 5, which I didn’t.
Karin: [00:10:00] know and think about logically from the get go, but it was just the five scenes. I thought, let’s make this Jewish and universal so that the great victim, the great call for humanity from this person that is being framed in this really greedy culture. It’s a super greedy culture, which I think we could say pretty safely about the West and about.
Karin: That time, Shakespeare’s time, the time of the marketplace in Venice, that our country now, my gosh, it never goes away, right? Founded on that, continues with that, it never stops. Greed and that framing of the play so that, We’re not talking about Shakespeare is anti Semitic, but and in fact, a framing of what he’s showing and what the culture is doing to this character in their five fold, and they were never there all together they were in each scene and then there [00:11:00] were.
Karin: Two times that they were together once in a howl moment. And then at the very end, Wow, that sounds
Anne: so powerful. And one of the things that I’m hearing as you describe it, it was so interesting to watch you describe it because your initial response was yes, absolutely yes. The same as your initial response when you were asked, will you do the high school play for these little boys, right?
Anne: These young men. So the initial response is yes. And then it’s. Oh, my goodness, this is complex. I need to really be thoughtful about this. I need to talk to some people and I need to consider all the implications of who I am coming into this particular context at this particular moment with this particular play.
Anne: And so, I love the idea of the initial yes before, right? It’s not like I need to think about whether or not I can take this on. This is a challenge. I’m taking it on. Yes. [00:12:00] That means I need to think about, right? James Weldon Johnson is an amazing poet. It’s not going to be the same in Italian at all, right?
Anne: There are some things that the power of the rhythm of that African American language that he’s writing in
Karin: is
Anne: in
Karin: English. That’s the power. Right. That’s right. The musicality, that pulse and having Trazana speak, it was just glorious. And somebody, I remember people also said that everyone was very worried.
Karin: They thought she should have a microphone. And I said, Trezana, do you think you need a mic? And she said, no, I said, please friends. Remember that this place was built in 13, early 1300s. And the Pope didn’t have a mic when he spoke there. He didn’t have a mic and Trazana is an actor and she did not. It was so powerful.
Karin: [00:13:00] And it was amazing because the facade, I don’t know if you’ve ever seen it. I have a picture I can send you. The facade is so astonishing, but usually people go there. And stare at it. And now it was brought to life in this interchange inter, interweaving between the actress and the facade so that it was brought to life.
Karin: It was really striking. So exciting.
Steven: I’m not an actor, but I’m a teacher and we all have that in common. And sometimes I think when I’m teaching, I’m playing this character, his version of myself, Professor D’Agustino. But at the same time, I want to be authentic in my practice as a teacher. So I’m wondering, as both an actor and a teacher, is there some intersection there that’s That they mutually inform one another.
Steven: Is there stuff from acting that maybe makes you be a better teacher and stuff from teaching that helps your acting practice?
Karin: There’s [00:14:00] so many things as a teacher that one tests, right? It’s like one, one speaks aloud with, one thinks aloud, I want to say, with, great passion and things tumble out. And, and so with the acting and the moving, teaching actors and teaching directors to work with actors, there’s, it’s really all about going inside as far as they can.
Karin: I always say, I want to go in this. It’s going to sound really funny, weird, maybe, but I like those actors that we go inside their heads and swim around. One could say inside their whole bodies, just go for that. But we go inside them and because we want to be, it’s like, I’m, I want to know how you’re thinking.
Karin: And those are the smart actors. Those are the really, you just. When they have secrets [00:15:00] that they’re not sharing everything, they’re not sharing everything. There’s so much more in there, but they’re speaking and they’re not emoting. It’s not so it’s like that. That is what I find the most compelling. So yeah, I suppose theater, it’s performance and as teachers, we perform and we have a confidence in that.
Karin: It’s a very deep gift, right? It’s a gift to be able to speak and, and with people, connecting with people and to try to bring out. that are secrets inside, I don’t know, to, that are lasting, that, that, I do think that the theater is is something that is ephemeral, but it’s also eternal. And I think that when one has done all one’s preparation for the encounter with an audience, that I [00:16:00] think an eternal chord is struck and that, that, so that those two E’s ephemeral, yes, it all goes away.
Karin: Did this happen? Did that play happen in the basketball court?
Steven: Is this part of like your desire to take theater out of the theater and move it into. Inhabited spaces like Where people aren’t expecting theater. So I guess what I’m thinking is like the passive to the active that you were modeling before about your audience leaning forward, I couldn’t help but think of my students like that, right?
Steven: I want them to lean forward and not consume the classes that they’re just watching it, but to actively engage. I’m wondering if I should just take my lecture notes and stand in the public square and just give my lecture and see how that goes. Yeah. So question.
Karin: Yeah, sure. I think shaking things up is a good thing.
Karin: And Socrates did that, didn’t he? I think shaking things up is really great. And I love the theater [00:17:00] and I love being outside the theater. I love, I think any space is a theater. And any place is a theater. is a place to teach. Any place is a place for spectacle. And it is, um, I, we took our Walt Whitman piece, for instance, all around various places in New York for free.
Karin: So it was more or less I am, and we did it for instance, yes, at Joe’s Pub, but we also did it at Grant’s Tomb, and we did it at Barge Music. in Brooklyn, and we did it in the Wadley School up in Harlem, and we did it at the World Trade Center, where those steps, everyone, all the audience sat on steps, and the performers were in that little platform with more steps going down.
Karin: They were there. We’ve done it. in so many places and I just think and people can be affected and have a life changed or we, as long as we come to [00:18:00] it prepared and then throwing it all out the window and saying, okay, I’m ready. I’ve got everything I need. I’m ready. But when I think about another little book that I really love, which I always have my students read in the beginning of Shakespeare, is the Architecture of Time.
Karin: It’s the prologue of Abraham Joshua Heschel in his little tiny book called The Sabbath. And Heschel was one of the, he was the rabbi that walked with Martin Luther King, King remarkable man and I, I started reading him when I was 19 in, in theology classes and so forth, and was just smitten by the poetic theology.
Karin: But in this architecture of time, he talks about how we occupy space, but we share time. And just for a minute, I think it’s important to privilege time over [00:19:00] space, of course space, in the theater we need space and time, but the time is very festive. And he goes on to talk about Sabbath and how that time is a time of rest and a festive time and it’s very beautiful, but I think theater is also like that.
Karin: Theater is, we’ve prepped and then it’s like, what is going to happen? And that’s what I’m looking for, a radical presence of being totally prepared with, by the actors having worked very hard, but also honoring each other and knowing each other so well. This really, I have to say that we just did King Lear at La Mama in July, and we’re going to do it again next year in January 26, and I was so thrilled with it.
Karin: It was 10 people playing Lear at the top of the, At the top of the play, know that we have divided in three, our kingdom and tis our fast intent. So it just, and they’re all wearing very tall [00:20:00] paper crowns. The design was all inspired by Anselm Kiefer and costume designers, Juana, uh, Botez. And it was just, it was a very special preparing this for years and years.
Karin: Actually, the first time I did it was at Fordham. I did it in 2000. Yes. When Gore lost, I’ll never forget. Soraya and it was 10 actors. So first time I did it at Fordham in that space, you go in in the Lincoln center and you turn right and there’s that gymnasium or whatever with a stage at the end. And we, and I had amazing designers.
Karin: I had Ricardo Hernandez. who did the set. He’s now doing everything on Broadway and everything. But, and I think Chad, who still teaches there, I think, was the lighting designer. P. K. Wish did the costumes. But anyway, it was very special. These 10 kids, 10 undergrads, and we did a [00:21:00] special piece of work. It was I always thank them in all the programs.
Karin: I think the Fordham kids, that’s when we first did it. And then I did it ART with those kids. And then I started doing workshop, little workshops and readings and keeping developing that. Now we’ve got it. Now we’re doing it. And we did it with, I don’t know if you know these names, but Michael Potts and Tom Nellis and Tony Torn and.
Karin: Joe may anyway, a whole bunch of people at both spectrum, like very seasoned actors and new on the block. That’s so
Anne: thrilling. Yeah. I have so many different questions that are sprouting off of what you’ve just shared, but let me just ask you one at a time. Okay. So one of the reasons I wanted to talk to a theater director is that we’re thinking about leadership and teachers are leaders in a way, right?
Anne: We’re in charge of our classroom. And as a [00:22:00] director, I, My hypothesis is that perhaps you have special challenges in leadership because the people that you’re working with are creative and they all come with you, to you, with very distinct ideas about how to do it. And I imagine that there’s, A little more pressure that you experience from your actors about, I had this idea, Karin, and excuse me, but my vision for my part, my vision for myself is this.
Anne: And so I’m wondering if my hypothesis bears any water and if it does, how do you think about leading other people who are also creative?
Karin: Yeah. Okay. A couple of things come to mind because, true, there are places, the, so there’s a vision, the, you, I’m visionary, definitely, people know that about me, I have a very strong [00:23:00] vision, I bring that into the room, I do lots and lots of work on the piece by myself first, and then start working talking with the creative team and dreaming and thinking about things and what about sitting in the space if we’re going to be in a particular space and just dreaming there and imagining stuff going to make sketches if like in the Jewish ghetto I sat and sketched and sketched and imagined use the use of the roof and the balcony the windows as well as the space because we played right on the stones and sometimes The vision is strong and when, and so people get excited about it, people get excited.
Karin: So that’s one thing. And then if sometimes there’s an idea that I hadn’t thought about and the vision can encompass that because it’s like, yeah, that’s great. That’s marvelous. Yes, indeed. There that’s I, yes. And it, it is. Um, I know I’ve had a [00:24:00] lot of talks with John Conklin, my very close friend who has, is known for making the set designs at the Metropolitan and Glimmerglass and different places.
Karin: But we always think about what the project wants to be and not imposing on the project, but what the project is, because there’s this moment, the vision, and then it’s, Oh, that’s where it’s going. That’s what it wants to be. Right. Right. And. My collaborators, of course, are all people that, that I’m, I’m very close to, and they’re new people.
Karin: Like I had a wonderful lighting designer that I worked with, with King Lear, and I was very interested. I could, he was a poet. wonderful, could feel a space, and was only frustrated by lack of equipment sometimes. And of course, those things upset us, but then, okay, what’s the next step? What do we do? How do we make it?
Karin: How do we make it despite that? And, because there’s always a way, there’s always something. And that [00:25:00] was, you know, So wonderful to work with him because I have worked with some fabulous lighting designers, just the, and composers too. Frank London, my goodness, who in a fury when he was also wrestling with his own mortality, he’s okay.
Karin: He’s doing okay, but it’s always going to be this thing that’s with him. But he, uh, I just saw him last evening, but he did the music for King Lear and in a fury. And we worked really within, in shorthand almost about the movements and so forth. Anyway. So yes, there’s listening to what the thing wants to be from the collaborators.
Karin: And then also sometimes I notice when, so actors that actors are usually really jazzed. I was so thrilled by King Lear. Every single one of those actors was so confident in. And I [00:26:00] love that. I love working with people that are deeply confident. And so we had a great time. And I didn’t have to build up anyone’s, I didn’t have to go overboard.
Karin: There are these things. Right, not a
Anne: lot of pep talks and oh honey, you can do it, you’re fine.
Karin: It was, there’s been a lot of, there’s a lot of that sometimes and you have to, there are other ways that the thing comes out and you realize, Oh my God, I was just so blessed with King Lear, beyond blessed. And, and, but I noticed that sometimes we need to communicate very clearly because misunderstandings can happen because I assume maybe that you understand something.
Karin: And so the task to be crystal clear In the way that is engaging and entertaining, and not impatient, because I can, I can feel these little things in me sometimes. And so it’s like just being clear sometimes for people, especially when they don’t [00:27:00] know me. Or don’t know all the things I’ve been through and gone through in terms of the vision or whatever it is.
Karin: So
Steven: when I’m, I’m listening to you talk about leadership and it’s really interesting because you say we a lot, right? You don’t really say I did this and I did that. It’s always we and praise and acknowledge the people that you worked with, right? Even so far as giving us their names, right? There was this person in this person.
Steven: So as a leader in your work, is it, do you have a theory of leadership? If you were, Imagine you’re on a podcast about leadership and people interested in leadership were listening to you. What would you say to leaders current and future? What is some advice that you might give? based on your experience?
Karin: Yeah, I would say humility and confidence. So I would say truly, truly humility is important. It’s to be on the earth and to [00:28:00] remember that we are all human and nobody, what is to be worshipped is what is larger than all of us, not each other we honor. And we, we should, Just as the scriptures say, actually outdo each other in giving honor to each other and calling each other.
Karin: But I would say humility is really very important. And I sometimes see, and that, that can excise the anger. That can excise. There’s a lot of anger these days. It’s really, sometimes I am very sensitive to it. I just, it’s a lot out there. There’s a lot
Anne: of anger. It’s a lot of anger. And it’s interesting that you talk about humility, humility and confidence and balancing those things.
Anne: I don’t have a question, but I want to hear you talk more about excising the anger. I think that phrase is so beautiful. Can you say a little bit more about. What you mean [00:29:00] by creating that atmosphere that kind of, it’s almost like defusing a bomb.
Karin: Yeah. Yeah. It’s hard because there are people walking around with lots of it and, and it’s hard and recognizing it.
Karin: We all, we all have anger. We all have anger and we have to learn to harness it. The harnessing of the anger so that there’s energy that it, that we don’t waste time, but okay, I’m going to put my. anger about injustice or about being misunderstood or about these things and put it into, there’s no time to waste.
Karin: And God knows I’ve wasted a lot of time with these things too, with lamenting and that sort of thing and looping and that sort of thing. But just saying, no, now look what, Look where we are in this situation right now in this. We started [00:30:00] talking about this, doing this interview before the election. Now it’s after the election and, and of course we live in a city where everyone opines openly, endlessly.
Karin: And just trying, I, another thing I would say is humor. I, and again, humor, hummus, humility, humor. There’s a sense of humor that’s needed. And I find that lacking sometimes I find it’s on, it’s like laughing at oneself, laughing at being able to open up to find the laughter of joy.
Anne: The theater is so beautiful for that, because I think about anger.
Anne: There’s plenty of anger in and there’s Leers There’s a lot of impotent rage and a lot of misdirected rage and a lot of pretty powerful rage. The rage of Goneril and Regan has real effect on the outcomes for that kingdom and Cordelia’s life. And, but [00:31:00] displacing the anger that we feel in our current situation by going to theater and having that catharsis of watching it unfold again for us and saying, Goneril and Regan don’t come out on top in this story and maybe we should rethink our acting just on impulse.
Karin: Yeah, I think with Lear, yes, with Lear, it’s such a deep, I believe that play was sculpted out of silence and then goes back to the ineffable, back to silence. So it’s like these words that are contained and surrounded by silence. When the mystery of that begins to be penetrated, then we start to catch the words and we start to See the grief and without going endlessly into therapeutic discussions about, but seeing the, the three sisters, the oldest, the middle and the [00:32:00] youngest, there, there’s pretty much a psychology that fits right across the board, right across time, right into now.
Karin: Who’s the oldest, who’s the youngest, who’s the middle, blah, blah, blah. And what goes on there and the competitions.
Steven: Yeah. So as the middle child in my family, I found myself lacking in sympathy for Cordelia, I have to say.
Karin: That’s right. That’s right. It’s like Cordelia. No. Yes. Again
Steven: with the Cordelia. Enough.
Steven: Enough already with Cordelia. Please.
Karin: She says, what’s so funny is that our, I really tapped into, I feel in the, there’s It’s so, the measurement of love at the beginning of that play is so false. That is not, that is, no, that is not what you do. That is a bad question, Lear. That is a bad question.
Steven: So I know we’re running out of time, but I’m [00:33:00] wondering if there is an actor or maybe a performance, even, that you would recommend to someone.
Steven: Who really wanted to see something special, maybe in a film. So it’s accessible to our audience.
Karin: Gosh,
Steven: there’s a lot of them. I imagine.
Karin: There’s so many people, something that just comes to mind is, which is actually just a kind of a, a recitation, but Judi Dench in the owl and the pussycat, and it is, Unbelievable.
Karin: It’s very short. She’s just unbelievable. She takes my breath away. Anything she’s in just kills me. She’s the
Anne: best. She’s the best. And you may, you made my day because one of our most faithful listeners is my mom and one of my mom’s very favorite people in the world is Judy Dench. This is going to make the final cut for sure.
Anne: That’s fantastic. And the owl and the pussycat. Oh, Edward Lear is hilarious.
Karin: You [00:34:00] have to see that it’s very short. It’s unbelievable. She’s just in a, being interviewed or something. And then she starts in.
Anne: That’s what I’ve noticed when I see her being interviewed and she’ll, someone will say something about poetry or Shakespeare to her.
Anne: And it’s, you flip a switch. And she has access to her performance self. Yes. And it’s right there. And I don’t even know how you live that close. You think about people who are like, I need to prepare and they turn their back and they shake their hair and they have to go into some zone. And she just is, it’s instantaneous with her.
Anne: It’s, it really does feel like a miracle when you watch. I feel like I’ve learned a ton. And we’re coming to the end of our time, but always the last question that we ask is not really a question, but an invitation for you to tell us about a teacher that’s mattered to you. So that’s my invitation to you.
Anne: So would you share with us the story of a teacher that’s been important in [00:35:00] your life?
Karin: Sure. I, my teacher mentor was, uh, Liviu Ciulei, who taught for one year. I think it was only at Columbia when I went there to, after I was in the boy’s school, I went to Columbia to study directing and got the MFA. And he, my second year, he walked into the classroom and it was like, Oh.
Karin: He, this, wow, I just, he started talking. He reminded me a little bit of my grandfather. In a moment, he’s Romanian. My grandfather was Italian, my maternal grandparents and so forth. So there’s something, and he assists, he’s We connected. He saw the poetry inside of me and he told that to me and he asked me to assist him.
Karin: So I assisted him on the Bacchae in the, at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis. For nine weeks, it was [00:36:00] amazing. And I would, he was teaching me Romanian. And I was just learning so much from him. And I wrote everything down. And then I would go home and have dinner with him and with Helga, his wife. Every night, I was almost like their daughter or something.
Karin: It was beautiful. We were always together and I sat by his side and he would turn to me and say some funny things and then go back. And I brought, I feel like I brought this younger energy too because there was, he had the chorus and at one point he did something with, which I really loved. It was like, yes, and I was rocking.
Karin: I said, yeah, that’s, and he said, so is the, so you would do something like this, wouldn’t you? And I said, yes, it was just, he was so elegant. He died in 2011 when I was doing Love’s Labors Lost at the public theater. And I remember. His passing and the [00:37:00] older ones in the crowd in the company knew him like Reggie Cathy and Francis Jew and Stephen Skybell.
Karin: They all knew, but he’s, yeah, he was very special to me and recognized and pulled it out and always, you know, saw that. And so we connected.
Anne: Yeah. That’s beautiful. And how wonderful to be seen by someone for whom you have so much respect and feel such a connection. That’s a great gift to have an amazing teacher and to have that teacher think that you’re great.
Anne: And yeah, that’s pretty cool.
Karin: It was such a gift. And I visited him in Bucharest and Yeah. And I’ve actually directed in Romania, but in the Hungarian section of Romania, which whole other thing, but yeah, very special human being.
Anne: Karen, it’s been just absolutely a delight and a treat. And I asked my colleague, George Drance, whom should we invite on the podcast?
Anne: And he [00:38:00] gave me one name and he said, I just know that you’re going to love Karen Coonrod. And I do. And so I’m, call me a convert. Thank you so much for your time.
Karin: Thank you. This is really lovely.
Steven: Thank you very much. It was lovely having you.
Karin: Yeah. Lovely to meet you too.
Steven: Twice Over Podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, and Spotify. New episodes update intermittently. We aim for once a week, but sometimes we just can’t get it done. You can also find us on our blog, twiceoverpodcast.com. Thanks so much for listening.
Twice Over Podcast 