Rachel Dart in the booth on the road.
We’re coming up on the final weekend of the play Desire from The Acting Company at the 59E59 Theaters. Yes, there are some illustrious playwrights that have taken Tennessee Williams’ stories and created short plays around them - Beth Henley and John Guare are just two of them. And, yes, the director has been referred to as "one of the foremost American interpreters of Williams’s plays over the past two decades” by the New York Times. But we are most excited about Desire because our own Rachel Dart is the associate director on the show.
First of all, an associate director is not the same as an assistant director. That’s a different title, and frankly, not as impressive. As associate director, Rachel worked side by side with director Michael Wilson to keep up with the many changes that would happen during rehearsal. Any script changes had to be cleared with the six different playwrights, any blocking changes had to be recorded, any notes had to be assimilated into the piece.
So since 2014 while also stage managing for Broadway’s Next Hit Musical, Rachel has been involved in workshops, rehearsals, and now performances for Desire.
Odds are good that if you’ve seen BNHM on the road in the past few years it was Rachel who was stage managing. Our stage managers also have the complicated task of calling the lighting and sound cues for our improvised shows. Who decides when a scene is over and it’s time to black the lights out? Rachel. Who figures out which fancy lighting specials we will be moving to before we’ve even moved to them? Rachel. Who double checks ahead of time that the theatre has a fishbowl ready for us? Rachel.
We work with the best to make our show the best. Having someone with the keen directorial skill that Rachel has - honed by working on high profile projects like Desire - assures us that every performance has through lines, focus, and energy until the final blackout.
Rachel Dart recently stage managed our show in Pensacola, FL and will be heading next to Traverse City, MI and Jenison, MI.
