Everything you wanted to Know about David Saint, but were afraid to ask!

Ok, well maybe not EVERYTHING, but here's a great feature appearing in NJ Monthly next month on our Artistic Director, David Saint

The Saint of George Street

George Street Playhouse artistic director David Saint's innovative vision has helped the venue become one of the most popular in the state.

Posted December 14, 2009 by Linda Fowler

David Saint is the artistic director of The George Street Playhouse in New Brunswick.

Photo by Frank Wojciechowski.

When David Saint’s long-ago ancestor, a sea captain from Wales, splintered his ship off the coast of Cape Cod, he must have reckoned it a sign. As the story goes, he built a house to replace the ship—on what eventually became Saint’s Landing Beach in Brewster, Massachusetts, a mill town—and it was in that same house that Saint’s grandfather and father were born.

Generations later, the same wanderlust infected David Saint, who was a journeyman stage director helming productions in 36 states. A dozen years ago, he was poised to direct the TV series Just Shoot Me when the call came from George Street Playhouse in New Brunswick: Would he come aboard as artistic director? He set a course for New Jersey—coincidentally, Milltown—where he’s been ever since.

The theatrical profession is often associated with ragged old steamer trunks, but Saint thinks of his 375-seat space as a designer handbag. Because of its intimacy, proximity to Manhattan, and solid reputation among actors, it has become a draw for top-tier playwrights and directors who often prefer the spotlight on their work rather than the spectacle of Broadway.

Under Saint’s stewardship, the 36-year-old theater has developed a niche for new chamber musicals and provocative plays. In the past decade, the musicals The Toxic Avenger and The Spitfire Grill had their world premieres under Saint’s watch before moving to the off-Broadway stage. David Auburn’s Proof was unveiled at George Street’s 1999 Next Stage Series for fledgling playwrights, then swept up three Tony Awards and a Pulitzer Prize during its subsequent off-Broadway and Broadway runs; it returned to George Street for a full staging in 2003.

As artistic director, the 46-year-old Saint likens himself to a nutritionist planning a balanced diet each season for his audiences: comedies for appetizers, dramas for the main course, and musicals as frothy desserts.

Next up for George Street is “a light soufflé”: Barry Wyner’s new musical Calvin Berger, a modern take on the classic romance Cyrano de Bergerac, set in a high school. A-lister Kathleen Marshall is signed to choreograph and direct. Over the summer, Saint will turn his attention to rehearsing George Street’s production of Sylvia with Rachel Dratch. He’ll also be auditioning and rehearsing actors as director of the upcoming national tour of Broadway’s West Side Story. Saint is the New York production’s associate director under Arthur Laurents, his longtime mentor.

Saint, a former divinity school student who was attracted by mysticism of the theatrical kind, is amused by theater fans who feel compelled to travel to Manhattan. “It always kills me when people call me: ‘Can you get me a ticket to Toxic Avenger in New York, can you get me a ticket to Proof in New York?’ I say, ‘Yeah, but it’s going to cost you a lot more. Why didn’t you see it here for less?’”

Alison Fraser Comes Back, Comes Back

Alison recently spoke to Playbill.com about her return to George Street Playhouse and had such nice things to say about her experience working here, we're happy to share it. Alison Fraser, who recently brought much warmth and humor to the role of stripper Tessie Tura in the Patti LuPone revival of Gypsy, is that rare theatrical creature who moves easily between musical comedy and drama. Although her Broadway outings have mostly been in musicals — including Tony-nominated turns in Romance/Romance and The Secret Garden — her work at regional theatres around the country has included many dramatic turns. Luckily, audiences now have the pleasure of catching both the actress and the singer in the George Street Playhouse's production of Arthur Laurents' Come Back, Come Back, Wherever You Are, which is playing a limited engagement at the New Jersey venue through Nov. 1. The world premiere, which also features Tony Award winner Shirley Knight, casts Fraser as a nightclub singer coping with the loss of her husband and allows the gifted artist the chance to wrap her voice around a few standards. Last week I had the pleasure of chatting with Fraser about her newest role, her return to the classroom and her plans for the future; that interview follows.

Question: How did this role in Come Back, Come Back, Wherever You Are come about?
Alison Fraser: You know, it was amazing. I was on the Cape, and I was busy feeling sorry for myself, thinking, "Ah well, that was it. That was my career. I'll never get another job again." [Laughs.] And, [George Street Playhouse artistic director] David Saint called me and said that a role had become available in Arthur Laurents' new piece and would I like to have at it? I'm like, "Oh, my God!" Sometimes, ever so wonderfully, there is spring. All of a sudden I had this beautiful artistic opportunity ahead of me working with basically my favorite people in show business. I love the George Street Playhouse. I definitely regard it as my artistic home, and I'm crazy about David Saint. And, of course, Arthur is a huge influence on me in my life and in my career.

Question: I know you worked with Laurents in Gypsy. Had you worked with him before that?
Fraser: No, Gypsy was the first time. We had known each other before that, though, because he is very good friends with David Saint. He had come to see me, I believe, in Gunmetal Blues, the last show I did at the George Street Playhouse a few years ago. He came to see me, and we started having dinner together and one day he said, "Would you like to be my Tessie Tura?" You don't really think twice about that. You go, "Well this is a show that's out there somewhere in the ether," little realizing that this is Arthur Laurents, and he gets things done! So lo and behold I got the call for the show, and we were blessed enough to turn it into a Broadway run, and I got to work with Patti LuPone, Boyd Gaines, Laura Benanti.

Question: Looking back on the Gypsy experience, does anything stand out in your mind?
Fraser: Well, Patti's a goddess. Her work ethic is absolutely superb. She absolutely raised the bar for everybody in that company. Watching the two of them, Arthur and Patti, work together was a great joy. You just saw these amazing minds melding and coming up with fabulous fireworks in the theatre. And watching Laura and Boyd… everybody was good. I'm working with Jim Bracchitta again, and Jim was in [Gypsy], too. And, I think the first time we were in the Broadway theatre looking around and hearing for how many kids it was their first Broadway experience. Oddly enough, it was Bill Raymond's first Broadway experience, too, and of course he's been a stalwart on the Off-Broadway scene for years with Mabou Mines, and he's big on TV and movies, but it was his Broadway debut. So it was thrilling to see how many indelible memories Arthur gave to me with this wonderful crew of singer/dancer/actors.

Fraser: Obviously, it's much more concentrated. My part is very large — I'm in every scene but one. In Gypsy you just have that fabulous 20-minute chunk and the rest of the time Marilyn Caskey and I would be reading "The Aeneid" out loud to each other in the dressing room. I don't know if you know this, but I go to Fordham University. I was having trouble concentrating backstage. I think I was taking a classics course, and I was having trouble reading "The Iliad." And then my sister Laurie, who basically knows everything, said, "Try reading it out loud." And I said, "Okay great." So I started reading it very, very softly to myself in the dressing room, and Marilyn said, "Let's just read it to each other." It was like the Aging Strippers Reading Club. [Laughs.] We wound up going through about 15 books in the year that we were on Broadway. We did "Anna Karenina," "Tale of Two Cities," "Great Expectations," we did "The Iliad," "The Odyssey," "The Aeneid," "Jason and the Search of the Golden Fleece." It was really astonishing how much literature you can get through if you have an houreveryday. The point is I wasn't needed onstage a hell of a lot. What was there was choice, as Spencer Tracy said to Katharine Hepburn, but [it was] sparse.

This show I'm much more in demand as far as my time is concerned. I have very little downtime. And the downtime that I have is spent changing, because I have fabulous clothes! . . . It's also a very deep subject. It's about loss and life after loss and what you need to maintain a meaningful existence when the most important thing in your life has been taken away from you, and admitting to yourself that you do need human contact and you need help getting through devastating emotional loss. Both Arthur and I, of course, went through that. And Shirley, too, Shirley Knight — goddess! I can't believe I'm actually working with her. She's been like my favorite actress since — I think Kennedy's Children was the second Broadway show I ever saw in New York. When David [Saint] told me who I was working with I was like, "You're kidding! You are kidding!" She always has been one of my favorites, probably my favorite. She's just so smart and so lovely. She's really the Patti of this piece. She really raises the bar, and it's thrilling to be a witness to that clockwork mind. It's amazing. It's like, "Wow, that woman is really thinking about what she's doing."

Question: How have rehearsals been going so far?
Fraser: It's a joy. You wouldn't think it would be a joy to get on a train and go out to New Jersey, not that New Jersey isn't a lovely state! [Laughs.] But I so look forward to work everyday. What is more blessed than that? I love my job, and already I'm experiencing pangs of regret that it's going to be over. It's like having this fabulous love affair. It can't last, and it's like, "Damn!" This is the horrible part of the ephemeral nature of theatre. Every show closes, except Phantom of the Opera and, I guess, The Mousetrap? But most theatre does [close] and already I'm going, "Oh, my God, I'm going to be so sad when this isn't a part of my everyday experience." I really love it. I just think it's a beautiful play, perfectly cast. Leslie Lyles and John Carter, man. Oh, my God, he's just great. It's also so wonderful sitting and watching, say, John Carter, who is an older gentleman, and Shirley, who has been around awhile, and, of course, Arthur, who is 92… You sit around and you think, "Wow, this is where I want to be when I am their age. I want to be productive and excited to have new experiences and to bring my experience to the table but to be completely open to new experiences." I'm sitting at this table listening to Arthur and Shirley talking . . . and then John, who famously worked with Edward Albee. I feel so privileged to be listening to them. I want to learn as much as I can from them. I want their essence to rub off on me somehow. Each one of the three of them — they are very wise and people with huge hearts.

Question: Tell me a little bit more about Sara, the character you're playing.
Fraser: Sara is a singer. She's quite a successful cabaret singer. She had a wonderful marriage to an extraordinary man, and he died of cancer. Of course, it's very similar to my life. I was married to a marvelous man [composer Rusty Magee], who died of cancer. She is just coming out of that shell period where, like a turtle, you've retreated to your shell. She's poking her head out of that shell and going, "How am I going to live the rest of my life?" She really has to come to terms with not only herself but also her family and a new love or maybe I should call it a "new like." Jim Bracchitta plays my love interest, and of course that's lots of fun because he's been a friend for years and years and years. I think that some people might be shocked by some of the wisdom that is imparted in this play. People do move on. People do have sexual urges despite having had an incredible marriage. Oddly enough, the bereaved can be censured for those natural urges. It was quite shocking to me, after Rusty died, when I started dating again. I was looked askance on. It was like, "Oh, really? Walk a mile in my shoes! After three years of cancer, you definitely need a few good days."

Question: How difficult is it reliving your experience through the character?
Fraser: Every once in awhile it really hits me because Arthur's way with words is so pointed, so focused. And, Arthur knows my story. My story is similar to Arthur's. The great loves of our lives had the same cancer doctor. They were in the same neurology unit at Sloan-Kettering. We can swap war stories. I think, for the most part, I can be objective. Also, it's so intensely Arthur's story, of course filtered through these lovely fictional characters. I have to say I think that the Rusty experience only deepens it. I don't think it makes it harder. Read more here

Shirley Knight Interview in the Home News Tribune

Shirley Knight brings spontaneity to stage

by Charles Paolino, October 4, 2009

Shirley Knight is in the cast of Arthur Laurents' new play, but she will not give a single performance.

The actress — a Tony and Emmy winner and an Oscar nominee — will appear at George Street Playhouse in Laurents' drama "Come Back, Come Back, Wherever You Are."

She will create the role of Marion, a psychological therapist who — along with the other four characters in the play — is trying to cope with the implications of the death of her charismatic son, Paolo.

The others are Sara, a professional singer — played by Alison Fraser — who was married to Paolo for 27 years; Richard — played by John Carter — who was Paolo's father; Michelle — played by Leslie Lyles — Paolo's disaffected sister; and Dougal — played by Jim Bracchitta — who competes with Paolo's lingering influence as he courts Sara.

Laurents, 92, who will direct this production, has woven into the play both the kind of introspective and unblinking discourse that has characterized most of his works and an underlying conviction that love is the most important factor in a human life.

The playwright, who has recently directed the Broadway revival of "West Side Story," for which he wrote the book, has introduced several plays and dozens of new characters on the George Street stage.

As Shirley Knight gives life to one of his newest characters, she said, she will approach the opportunity with a mindset that is necessary if Marion is to be spontaneous and, therefore, credible.

"I never give a performance," the 73-year-old actress said. "Each night, I have another rehearsal. And that is essential because if you just do a rerun of what you did the night before or the week before or on opening night, it would be unbelievably boring."

When she appears onstage at any time during the run of this play, Knight said, she won't be acting Marion so much as she will be Marion. And that will mean that she won't anticipate what will occur, no matter how many times she has heard it.

"There really is only one pure state of acting," she said, "and that's that you don't know what you're going to say, you don't know what you're going to do. You don't know what the other person is going to say or do. You don't know where the play is going. You have to do a play as if you haven't read the play.

"Now, of course, you have read the play — but you cannot be in that state of knowing. You have to be in the state of going absolutely from moment to moment."

Read the complete interview here!

Alison Fraser and Shirley Knight photo by T. Charles Erickson

Behind the Scenes with Shirley Knight and Co

Mail Bag: Letters to David Saint

One thing we love at George Street Playhouse is when hear from our audience. It's part of what makes theatre a two way conversation and partly why this blog exists! After every preview of a show, we host talk backs with the creative team of the production, moderated by David Saint, our Artistic Director. We have a very vocal audience and I thought it would be great to share a recent letter from David Saint's desk:

"I would like to express my appreciation for your outstanding production of The Toxic Avenger, which perhaps was one of the best and most entertaining shows ever featured at the George Street Playhouse, regardless of genre. Not only were the book, music and lyrics unbelievable, the casting and performances were superb as well. If ever there was a production that embodied excellence in every way (and deserves an encore) it was The Toxic Avenger, which was simply a brilliant and totally satisfying piece of theatre.

The other show I saw and enjoyed was the world premiere of Arthur Laurents' New Year's Eve, with Marlo Thomas and Keith Carradine heading up a solid cast. Mr. Laurents' keen unblinking eye for irony and the maturity and depth of his observations of the human condition made the play extremely successful both as an entertainment and cause for reflection.

Thanks to you, George Street audiences are now being challenged as well as entertained! Which means that the product is alive, vibrant, engaging and (most importantly) thoroughly entertaining. And that is about as good it gets!

Sincerely,
M.A. Smith"
Got a thought on your mind? We'd love to hear from you. Feel free to post it on the blog and we will try to respond as quickly as possible. Hope to see you at the theatre.

Setting the Stage

Take a look at the the work our fantastic scene shop does to bring our designers' work to reality.

New Years Eve by Arthur Laurents
Directed by David Saint
Scenic Design by James Youmans
Lighting Design by Joe Saint
Complete set photo by T.Charles Erickson

Liz Smith reports about New Year's Eve

The following article is from today's blog entry from famed former Page Six columnist Liz Smith:

FLASH! One of wOw’s most distinguished own — the actress Marlo Thomas — will open on Friday, April 17, in New Brunswick, New Jersey’s George Street Playhouse.

In almost the same moment that his revival of “West Side Story” opened to raves on Broadway, the writer-director Arthur Laurents is letting his new play, “New Year’s Eve,” be presented for a run there through May 10.

Arthur’s co-director for "West Side Story,” David Saint, is also directing “New Year’s Eve,” and friends tell me that when Mr. Laurents, age 91, isn’t off skiing and jumping about, he is in New Brunswick checking out his latest project.

I don’t have to remind you who Marlo Thomas is. (She is now “that woman” of the famous TV show “That Girl.”) Starring with Marlo are actors Keith Carradine, Peter Frechette and Walter Belenky. Notable in the cast is the beautiful daughter of the late film star, Natalie Wood. Natasha Gregson Wagner auditioned and won her role.

This production came about because, some time ago, playwright Laurents went over to the George Street Playhouse to see Elaine May’s play, “Roger Is Dead.” There, he simply fell in love with Marlo Thomas and decided she’d be perfect for “New Year’s Eve.”

Arthur Laurents is famous for not suffering fools gladly and speaking his mind. I have been a friend of his simply forever; we go back to the 1950s. But I was delighted and amused when Marlo told me how she feels about Arthur. “He has been so sweet!” she laughed. Ok, I’m going to New Jersey on the 17th to check this out!

Tickets at the George Street Playhouse range from $28 to $66, so this is a good chance for the theater-loving public in New York and New Jersey!

GSP TV: Entertainment Tonight & MSNBC

Arthur Laurents' production of West Side Story opened last night at The Palace Theatre. New Year's Eve stars Marlo Thomas and Keith Carradine were on the red carpet as well as last season's Roger is Dead director and playwright Elaine May. Keith and Marlo spoke with Entertainment Tonight before the show. Arthur also spoke recently with Mike Taibbi on NBC's Nightly News with Brian Williams about the historic revival. Both videos below!

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