INTERMISSION 15 minutes with ...
Laurie Woolery
This month, Cornerstone Theatre Company opened ‘Los Illegals,’ the first part of a
five-play enterprise called ‘The Justice Cycle’ that will involve the entire company,
several of its associate playwrights, and community partners over several years. The
last Cornerstone cycle ended only a few years ago. It was on the subject of religious
faith and its final chapter, a ‘Bridge Show’ as the culminating play is called, will
long be remembered here in town. But between then and now much has happened to
Cornerstone. It’s founding spirit Bill Rauch (read interview with Bill) took a post at
the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. A search for his successor ended last year with the
appointment of Michael John Garcés. Laurie Woolery, a former colleague at South
Coast Repertory, has since joined the team as Associate Artistic Director. After we
attended a recent performance at the Pasadena Playhouse, we sat together to talk
about the upcoming cycle.
Laurie Woolery
This month, Cornerstone Theatre Company opened ‘Los Illegals,’ the first part of a
five-play enterprise called ‘The Justice Cycle’ that will involve the entire company,
several of its associate playwrights, and community partners over several years. The
last Cornerstone cycle ended only a few years ago. It was on the subject of religious
faith and its final chapter, a ‘Bridge Show’ as the culminating play is called, will
long be remembered here in town. But between then and now much has happened to
Cornerstone. It’s founding spirit Bill Rauch (read interview with Bill) took a post at
the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. A search for his successor ended last year with the
appointment of Michael John Garcés. Laurie Woolery, a former colleague at South
Coast Repertory, has since joined the team as Associate Artistic Director. After we
attended a recent performance at the Pasadena Playhouse, we sat together to talk
about the upcoming cycle.
CRIS GROSS: A cycle has how many parts?
LAURIE WOOLERY It depends. Our faith-based cycle started off much smaller and grew. It was
supposed to be a three-and-a-half-year cycle and it became a four-and-a-half-year cycle. But in some
ways it grew and in some ways we pulled back, because there were some faiths, like Pentecostals,
that we were going to do but it didn’t work out.
With the Justice Cycle we have planned five shows, four of them being in different areas of justice that
interest us as a company – undocumented workers, reproductive rights, the idea of
punishment/retribution, and environment – and then the fifth bridge show to bring all those communities
together.
CRIS GROSS: Is calendared beyond ‘Los Illegals’. . .
LAURIE WOOLERY: We originally scheduled them to begin spring ’07 with Los Illegals and then
continue Winter, Spring, Winter, Spring, ending with the bridge show in Spring ’09. But we’re finding
that we need more time with our community partners because it’s such a huge topic. With the
immigration reform campaign so much at the forefront today, just getting our community partners
involved with Los Illegals has been difficult. I don’t know if Cornerstone has ever done a play that is so
timely that all the community partners are needed on the forefront fighting the battle right now. I mean all
the events of May Day on in MacArthur Park. Our community partners are slammed. So as much as
they love us and want to spend time with us and assist us in the process of getting their community
involved, they’re needed elsewhere.
Still, they’ve been incredibly great. The UCLA Labor Center and the South Asian Network, these
organizations, no matter how busy they are, they’re generous and we found that we just have to adjust
to their time schedule as well. Which is one of the things about Corrnerstone that I love, the ability to go
and even though we thought it was a perfect little package, we need to be able to breathe and allow
ourselves not to be so rigid.
So we’re pushing the reproductive rights play until spring ’08. Julie Marie Myatt is writing that and
Michael John Garcés will direct.
CRIS GROSS: I think my Theater Times review of Julie’s ‘Wandering Boy’ (here) at SCR made me her
biggest advocate this spring, so I’m particularly interested in seeing her work. Is she working on the
reproductive rights script now?
LAURIE WOOLERY: Well, again, the reproductive rights issue is huge. One of the great questions that
Julie keeps asking is how we talk about reproductive rights without immediately going to abortion. What
are reproductive rights? Can we think bigger in what that is? There are gay parents wanting
reproductive rights, single women who feel their reproductive rights have been taken away through
economics? We also discovered that it’s an issue that is super personal. All our story circles are
personal, and Julie’s been spending a lot of time doing one-on-one interviews with people. Because
each individual’s – or couple’s – journey is really private. The process of reviewing decisions people
have made in the past and how they have affected their present and will affect their future thoughts
about having children is very complicated.
I saw Julie at SCR’s Pacific Playwrights Festival [which included ‘My Wandering Boy’] and she’s pretty
busy. She doesn’t have a deadline for now. And when we decided to lengthen out our justice cycle it
actually worked out better in terms of our playwrights.
Also, we shouldn’t underestimate the transition we’re going through. Because Bill left and Michael came
on board and we said, ‘Okay! Let’s do a cycle!’
CRIS GROSS: As if to say, let’s now do the hardest thing we can imagine.
LAURIE WOOLERY: Yeah, so Michael’s going like: Uhhh . . . . He had to get to know Cornerstone and
get to know the ensemble and start developing relationships to see how this machine works. Then start
implementing changes to make it his own, honoring our history but moving into the future. So planning
the cycle took longer than we had anticipated while we were moving forward out of the transition.
And, we’re really still in the transition. I think we thought a transition took until we’d decided on our new
AD and Bill left and Michael arrived. Transition over. And I think what we’ve discovered is transition is a
period of time.
There’s an emotional fall out. When Chris Acebo had his last staff meeting with designers a few weeks
ago, my first thought was how tired I’ve become of saying good bye. You know, even though I feel like I
left SCR on really good terms, you still have to entangle yourself from that. And I still miss it. I miss my
friends there and my students and the program. And I was moving to Cornerstone, which was another
group of friends and another artistic home for me. So I actually had it easier. I can’t imagine what
Michael and Bill are going through in terms of how they transition.
Chris Moore said something to me that really stuck with me. He said the gift of Cornerstone is not the
only the work that we do, it’s how it really forces you to have to step up as a human being and calls you
out on your shit. And suddenly I realized ideas and things I had that I wouldn’t have realized if I hadn’t
shaken up my world. And it’s true. I could have easily worked at my old job with my students until I
was 80 I loved it so much. But now, I’ve finished my second year and it took that long to untangle
myself from my old world and be more open to not having it all opened up.
And that’s what is exciting about the Justice Cycle too. I mean we’re a little nervous because we’re
going down this unexplored road to explore the theme of justice. What does that mean? That’s huge.
And what are we saying? Are we going to come at it with a very specific point of view? That is not
normally what we do. We don’t go into it to gather other people’s stories so we can tell the story we
want. We let it tell itself by trying to honor a process and trust that it’s going to take us down the road.
LAURIE WOOLERY It depends. Our faith-based cycle started off much smaller and grew. It was
supposed to be a three-and-a-half-year cycle and it became a four-and-a-half-year cycle. But in some
ways it grew and in some ways we pulled back, because there were some faiths, like Pentecostals,
that we were going to do but it didn’t work out.
With the Justice Cycle we have planned five shows, four of them being in different areas of justice that
interest us as a company – undocumented workers, reproductive rights, the idea of
punishment/retribution, and environment – and then the fifth bridge show to bring all those communities
together.
CRIS GROSS: Is calendared beyond ‘Los Illegals’. . .
LAURIE WOOLERY: We originally scheduled them to begin spring ’07 with Los Illegals and then
continue Winter, Spring, Winter, Spring, ending with the bridge show in Spring ’09. But we’re finding
that we need more time with our community partners because it’s such a huge topic. With the
immigration reform campaign so much at the forefront today, just getting our community partners
involved with Los Illegals has been difficult. I don’t know if Cornerstone has ever done a play that is so
timely that all the community partners are needed on the forefront fighting the battle right now. I mean all
the events of May Day on in MacArthur Park. Our community partners are slammed. So as much as
they love us and want to spend time with us and assist us in the process of getting their community
involved, they’re needed elsewhere.
Still, they’ve been incredibly great. The UCLA Labor Center and the South Asian Network, these
organizations, no matter how busy they are, they’re generous and we found that we just have to adjust
to their time schedule as well. Which is one of the things about Corrnerstone that I love, the ability to go
and even though we thought it was a perfect little package, we need to be able to breathe and allow
ourselves not to be so rigid.
So we’re pushing the reproductive rights play until spring ’08. Julie Marie Myatt is writing that and
Michael John Garcés will direct.
CRIS GROSS: I think my Theater Times review of Julie’s ‘Wandering Boy’ (here) at SCR made me her
biggest advocate this spring, so I’m particularly interested in seeing her work. Is she working on the
reproductive rights script now?
LAURIE WOOLERY: Well, again, the reproductive rights issue is huge. One of the great questions that
Julie keeps asking is how we talk about reproductive rights without immediately going to abortion. What
are reproductive rights? Can we think bigger in what that is? There are gay parents wanting
reproductive rights, single women who feel their reproductive rights have been taken away through
economics? We also discovered that it’s an issue that is super personal. All our story circles are
personal, and Julie’s been spending a lot of time doing one-on-one interviews with people. Because
each individual’s – or couple’s – journey is really private. The process of reviewing decisions people
have made in the past and how they have affected their present and will affect their future thoughts
about having children is very complicated.
I saw Julie at SCR’s Pacific Playwrights Festival [which included ‘My Wandering Boy’] and she’s pretty
busy. She doesn’t have a deadline for now. And when we decided to lengthen out our justice cycle it
actually worked out better in terms of our playwrights.
Also, we shouldn’t underestimate the transition we’re going through. Because Bill left and Michael came
on board and we said, ‘Okay! Let’s do a cycle!’
CRIS GROSS: As if to say, let’s now do the hardest thing we can imagine.
LAURIE WOOLERY: Yeah, so Michael’s going like: Uhhh . . . . He had to get to know Cornerstone and
get to know the ensemble and start developing relationships to see how this machine works. Then start
implementing changes to make it his own, honoring our history but moving into the future. So planning
the cycle took longer than we had anticipated while we were moving forward out of the transition.
And, we’re really still in the transition. I think we thought a transition took until we’d decided on our new
AD and Bill left and Michael arrived. Transition over. And I think what we’ve discovered is transition is a
period of time.
There’s an emotional fall out. When Chris Acebo had his last staff meeting with designers a few weeks
ago, my first thought was how tired I’ve become of saying good bye. You know, even though I feel like I
left SCR on really good terms, you still have to entangle yourself from that. And I still miss it. I miss my
friends there and my students and the program. And I was moving to Cornerstone, which was another
group of friends and another artistic home for me. So I actually had it easier. I can’t imagine what
Michael and Bill are going through in terms of how they transition.
Chris Moore said something to me that really stuck with me. He said the gift of Cornerstone is not the
only the work that we do, it’s how it really forces you to have to step up as a human being and calls you
out on your shit. And suddenly I realized ideas and things I had that I wouldn’t have realized if I hadn’t
shaken up my world. And it’s true. I could have easily worked at my old job with my students until I
was 80 I loved it so much. But now, I’ve finished my second year and it took that long to untangle
myself from my old world and be more open to not having it all opened up.
And that’s what is exciting about the Justice Cycle too. I mean we’re a little nervous because we’re
going down this unexplored road to explore the theme of justice. What does that mean? That’s huge.
And what are we saying? Are we going to come at it with a very specific point of view? That is not
normally what we do. We don’t go into it to gather other people’s stories so we can tell the story we
want. We let it tell itself by trying to honor a process and trust that it’s going to take us down the road.
| THEATER TIMES DIALOGUE / JUSTICE SERVED |
Cornerstone Theatre
Company Associate Artistic
Director Laurie Woolery is an
actor, director and
playwright who has worked
at South Coast Repertory
(most recently as Director of
the Theatre Conservatory),
Mark Taper Forum, Los
Angeles Theatre Center,
Ricardo Montalban Theatre,
Deaf-West Theatre, fofo
Theatre, Highways
Performance Space, A Noise
Within, and the Sundance
Playwrights Lab and
Children's Theatre.
As a director and playwright,
she has created and
collaborated on many new
works and her solo play
Salvadorian Moon/African
Sky was commissioned by
Cornerstone Theatre
Company and performed by
Ms. Woolery in its citywide
Festival of Faith. Ms.
Woolery worked with Bill
Rauch on the world premiere
of Lisa Loomer's 'Living Out'
at the Mark Taper Forum
and SCR's 'Lovers and
Executioners'. She directed
'Amor Eterno - Six Lessons in
Love' (an anthology by six
Latino playwrights) for the
grand opening of the Ricardo
Montalban Theatre (formerly
the Doolittle). She also
directed Bryan Davidson's
'Reflecting Back' at the Los
Angeles Central Library as
part of the National Tour of
the American Originals
exhibit and Richard Coca's
solo piece 'The Day I Flipped
Off Jimmy Carter' for SCR's
Hispanic Playwrights Project.
Company Associate Artistic
Director Laurie Woolery is an
actor, director and
playwright who has worked
at South Coast Repertory
(most recently as Director of
the Theatre Conservatory),
Mark Taper Forum, Los
Angeles Theatre Center,
Ricardo Montalban Theatre,
Deaf-West Theatre, fofo
Theatre, Highways
Performance Space, A Noise
Within, and the Sundance
Playwrights Lab and
Children's Theatre.
As a director and playwright,
she has created and
collaborated on many new
works and her solo play
Salvadorian Moon/African
Sky was commissioned by
Cornerstone Theatre
Company and performed by
Ms. Woolery in its citywide
Festival of Faith. Ms.
Woolery worked with Bill
Rauch on the world premiere
of Lisa Loomer's 'Living Out'
at the Mark Taper Forum
and SCR's 'Lovers and
Executioners'. She directed
'Amor Eterno - Six Lessons in
Love' (an anthology by six
Latino playwrights) for the
grand opening of the Ricardo
Montalban Theatre (formerly
the Doolittle). She also
directed Bryan Davidson's
'Reflecting Back' at the Los
Angeles Central Library as
part of the National Tour of
the American Originals
exhibit and Richard Coca's
solo piece 'The Day I Flipped
Off Jimmy Carter' for SCR's
Hispanic Playwrights Project.
Ubaldo Hernández
Jesus Zamora
PHOTOs JOHN LUKER
Jesus Zamora
PHOTOs JOHN LUKER
| Andrew Cohen, Juan José Mangandi Pérez, Betto Arcos, Ubaldo Hernández and Jesus Zamora |