Doug Joiner directed the play Every Brilliant Thing, by Duncan Macmillan, in the Fall 2018 semester.
Augusta University Theatre Camp
Rising 6th through 12th graders will have the opportunity to learn from Joiner this
summer, June 10-14, during our week-long Theatre Camp full of acting, theater
games, stage combat, workshops, costuming, and more. Register now at
augusta.edu/pace/youth/theatre.php.
direct, I keep my boredom in mind. I let that
guide my directing.”
As a result, Joiner tends to choose plays that
are shorter, well-suited to the strengths of the
student actors he has available, and above all,
capable of pulling the audience outside of the
familiar, to evoke a sense of wonder that absorbs
their whole attention.
“Whether I’m doing a scene a different way,
or have a moment where the invisible is made
visible—that’s what it is: the creation of striking
moments like that.” Joiner says. “That’s what
makes it worth it.”
He knows he has succeeded if the play strikes
the audience silent, something he estimates he
has achieved “probably five times in 50 plays.”
He described such a moment in Amish Project:
“At the end, the Amish characters are on stage
with their white aprons and hats. They start
singing this song and they count along, ringing
the bell for the deaths. The lights went down.
The blacklight came on. All you saw was the
white caps almost floating down. You saw their
aprons coming off. That’s all you saw. Each one
of them. A moment like that is what I love.”
In the fall term, Joiner staged an even more
ambitious effort in Here to Get My Baby Out of
Jail, a musical based on the novel by Louise
Shivers. Joiner wrote the script, directed the
performance, and built the set—an enormous
undertaking that he managed in only six
months.
“We were opening and I was still putting the
last caster on the oven or something,” he recalls.
“I worked such long days that when I went
home, my dog would look at me like, ‘who the
hell are you?’”
Here to Get My Baby Out of Jail was presented
as a workshop performance. Joiner intends to
continue fleshing out and refining the piece
based on what he learned by seeing it.
“I like the story,” he says, “but I should’ve
developed the conflict more because it went too
fast. The struggle wasn’t there. At the end of
the play, nobody really cares. Roxy (the main
character) is not empathetic enough. We don’t
feel her hurt because we don’t care. We’ll work
out those kinks.”
There are moments Joiner was pleased
with—in particular, the scene in which Roxy
is alone with a radio quietly directing herself,
and another in which Aaron (the husband Roxy
betrays) sings “Touch the Sun,” while people
on stage slowly move away the pieces of his
house to underscore that he’s left with nothing.
As Joiner talks about those moments, there’s a
far-away look in his eyes, as if he has withdrawn
into the workshop of his mind to tinker with the
pieces further.
Tinkering is clearly Joiner’s passion. Theatre
appeals to him largely because it furnishes so
many different types of raw materials to work
with: sets that need building, scenes that need
directing, student actors who need coaching, and
scripts that need writing. Whatever it is, Joiner
works hard to transmute it into something that
will speak to an audience in a surprising and
meaningful way. He doesn’t always succeed,
but his dissatisfaction drives him to keep
experimenting with what theatre can do.
“I tell my students you cannot be afraid to fail
miserably. If you haven’t failed miserably, you
haven’t taken a chance and you’re never going
to do anything truly worthwhile. You’ve never
tried anything bold.”
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