Sherman: Do you find yourself
simplifying or “dummying down”
your work? Or do you think you
should make the audience work a
little?
Rebeck: I believe that the human
experience is universal on some
level. …And I’m not interested in
plays that are only written for a
certain kind of audience. I think
that’s really a mistake. And… I
don’t think that audiences should
be disdained either. …I write seri-
ous plays that have a kind of
comedic bounce in them. And I
listen carefully during previews to
what I can learn from an audience.
The whole idea of previews was
built around listening to the audi-
ence. “Do we lose them here? Does
that scene go on too long? Does it
not go on long enough?” And …
the workshop process is all about
that. And then - when you’re lucky
enough to get it into production -
[during] previews, you’re listening
to what the audience is telling you
about how they’re hearing - or re-
ceiving - what you’ve written… I
mean, there are times when I go,
“I don’t care if they get that or not”
or “I don’t care if I get that laugh
or not.” But sometimes there are
things that you do care about. Like,
if they’re laughing in places that
you don’t want them to laugh - you
can kill the laugh. THAT’S
SOMETHING THAT ALAN
TAUGHT ME; how to kill a laugh.
plays that required re-working.
You know, a moment during re-
hearsals in which you said, “This is
not working”…?
Rebeck: Yes. Last year, when I was
working on Bernhardt/Hamlet, we
had the great Janet McTeer play-
ing the title role… She had read
an early draft of the play, really
liked it, and really wanted to com-
mit right away. But because of her
schedule, we had to bump up the
production to the fall. It would
have been better to be doing it in
the spring,… but we had to move it
Sherman: Can you share an
forward. And so the fact is,that play
example of a scene from one of your was being done cold on Broadway.
TONY Award Winner Tyne Daly and brother, Tim, in DOWNSTAIRS (2017).
Photo courtesy of Dorset Theatre Festival.
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