wittenberg | director interview

Here's a (very) brief Q&A with WITTENBERG director Stephen Drover.

What excites you about the script of Wittenberg?

This is a play with big ideas delivered in a very playful way. It starts with a light-hearted premise (Martin Luter and Faust have drinking arguments) but goes to some pretty deep places. It's one of the most "post-modern" plays I've ever read, bringing together characters from history and different literary sources to duke out some intelligent and provocative debate with a very contemporary mind. Smart and fun stuff.

This is your second "extended staged reading" at Pacific Theatre – what is challenging about this kind of production?

Pulling something like this together takes a lot of things off the table. With two and a half days of prep with actors and next-to-no production resources, there is not a lot of discussion about the play or negotiating design. There is really just enough time to walk the actors through where they will stand and sit. The interesting thing is that it really does put the script front and centre to speak for itself. Sometimes this works beautifully and other times it shows you where you could get real magic if you could work it a bit more. It’s actually a fantastic warm-up for a real rehearsal process (if things ever turn out that way -- which they did with Judas).