Founding Artistic Director of The Axial Theatre, an innovative professional Westchester-based Theatre Company and Acting Program. A playwright, theatre director and acting teacher, his work has appeared Off-Broadway and regionally at theatres including New York Theatre Workshop, Rattlestick Productions, The Playwright’s Center, Coyote Rep, Manhattan Theatre Club, The Schoolhouse Theatre, Fleetwood Stage, Total Theatre Lab, HERE, Barnspace, and Axial. He has taught acting for the past twenty years in New York City, and in Westchester County. Mr. Meyer’s plays include “WELCOME, This is a Neighborhood Watch Community,” “The Kiss,” “All That’s Fair,” “Twenty,” “Cherrie & Jerry,” “AngelBeast,” the monologue “Calculus,” “Lost In Paradise optioned for a motion picture, and “Radiance” (semi-finalist – 2011 O’Neill National Playwright’s Conference). www.axialtheatre.org, www.hmacting.org
Did you begin in the theatre at an early age?
I didn’t come from an artistic family. In high school I was a competitive athlete. I believe that that passion later found its way into my theatre life and my playwriting. I grew up in Queens, and my parents would take me to see musicals like “Fiddler on the Roof,” “Grease,” “Sound of Music,” but there really wasn’t much of a theatrical influence growing up.
As it was with many first and second generation Jewish immigrant families, professionalism and security were highly valued. Having letters on the end of your name that people couldn’t take away was mentally instilled in us consciously and subconsciously.
I attempted the medical thing, going to Stuyvesant High School, and then Brandeis University. What they didn’t tell me at Brandeis was 400 people started pre-med and 50 wound up finishing. They threw organic chemistry at you, and that immediately weeded folks out; I was one of the casualties. At the time, it was desperate blow. But I needed it. The values I had adopted needed to be shattered. I shifted my major to psychology, to business, worked for a cousin, but I was still unhappy. But it gave me some important life skills. It taught me what it meant to be entrepreneurial, which has served me well founding a theatre and acting program.
During a summer I worked for a friend on Nantucket and decided I made a huge mistake. I applied to Columbia’s medical program. After I got in, in two weeks I quit. During this soul-searching period, a cousin said to me: “Why don’t you try acting?” I thought “Acting??” I had no point of reference at all, but I signed up for a class at HB Studios. Steven Strimpell and Bill Hickey both said to me: “You have talent but you need technique.” I found my way to Ron Stetson. During the intensive two-year training with Ron, I made a full commitment this what I was going to do with my life. I had found a world where truth and meaning were the premium. Some part of me woke up. I had found my home.
Did it give you what you were seeking?
When I started working with the Meisner technique, I had a pretty good imagination but I was shut down emotionally. The problem was accessing my emotional life so I felt discouraged. I worked on the Strasberg Method with a protégé of Ernie Martin, Michael Barbary. It gave me more access to my emotions. Then I studied with Michael Howard for several years; he became my most important teacher. His exercises further opened up my emotional life and imagination. His teaching has informed my work. I also studied Michael Chekhov’s work, discovering the psychological gesture which gave me additional tools. I was a member of the inaugural Directors Lab at Lincoln Center. They brought in various teachers to work with us. One was skilled in Meyerhold’s work, which was another valuable system I could use.
How would you describe your teaching?
You’ve got to be a good diagnostician. When students emerge from their training their job is to serve the text, and the text is an excellent teaching tool. It’s there to help the actor figure out who they are as artists, to gain access to their instrument. I’ve witnessed extraordinary and magical transformations over the years. As the students open up to themselves, they have to ask: Who is this character? What clues does the text provide me? The goal is not to come up with a finite view of the text but to establish a working investigation to those questions, using all the techniques at their disposal.
I’m also a playwright. I love the text. I try to use the wisdom that many different techniques, symposiums, classes, and workshops have provided me. I was quite taken by the work of Anne Bogart, Tina Landau and Viewpoints.
Every actor has their own path, so although my training is rooted in Stanislavsky, I try to incorporate various approaches to help define what will work best for each actor.
As a playwright, I spend two to three years with the characters and the story, wrestling with complex matters, peak-moments in people’s lives. Why else write a play? Actors need to understand the character with the same intensity and commitment as the writer who has crafted them.
Has being an actor also informed your teaching?
I’ve discovered that one’s development and growth never ends. My favorite actors are always pushing the envelope. Sean Penn is continually pushing himself, moving out of his comfort zone. I’m always surprised and delighted by his choices. I thought his work in “Milk” was an incredibly brave turn. I think it requires incredible courage to explore all the different sides of one’s self, the hidden sides. As an actor, it’s about telling the truth. Making new discoveries is a never-ending adventure and challenge.
Did your directing happen at the same time you began teaching?
I started teaching before I directed. Caroline Thomas invited me to be her partner of the Total Theatre Lab in 1990. It was there I began teaching, and had my first explorations as a director. I acted in a show with Athol Fugard’s daughter, Lisa, and after that, Athol invited me to be his assistant director on his play, “Playland” at Manhattan Theatre Club. Kevin Spacey and Frankie Faison were in the cast. The experience at MTC with Athol was life-changing. I became friends with Spacey.
It was an amazing environment at MTC. Terrance McNally’s “The Perfect Ganesh” was being rehearsed down the hall. Joe Chaikin was around the corner working on a revival of one of his pieces, “Tourists and Refugees.” I felt I had arrived in theatre heaven. It was a major turning point in my life. I continued my association with Athol, a rare and thrilling opportunity. I became a member of New York Theatre Workshop’s community and then was invited to direct one of his Athol’s early plays, “Hello & Goodbye,” at Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre.
I felt I was beginning to create serious work. Then I was invited to direct the first workshop of Craig Wright’s “The Pavilion.” I became very attracted to new plays. That’s what finally led me into writing my own plays. I found there were things I needed to say.
How did that lead to your continuing to write?
I was invited to teach a writing class, but I told them that I wasn’t a writer, I was a director.
They insisted I teach the class anyway. So I did what any under-qualified teacher does, I bought some books on playwriting. Then a theater in Westchester commissioned me to create a play with a group of students; I had never written a play before. The way I viewed it, the universe was thrusting me down my chosen life’s path. So I accepted.
Today, I consider playwriting my primary artistic form. It doesn’t mean every actor or director has the ability to write plays. But for me I found I had the aptitude and the passion. I’ve written seven plays now, and co-written two others. Once in a while I direct my own work, but I prefer having other people direct my plays. I find that working with a director brings a fresh and skilled perspective that the play really benefits from.
What was the process like on your recent play, “WELCOME, This is a Neighborhood Watch Community?”
Josh Hecht brought great dramaturgical skill and a tremendous vision to the staging. Axial Theatre is located in a huge, beautifully atrium-ceilinged hall on the campus of a church in Pleasantville. Josh used the space with ingenuity putting the audience in the center of the action. The entire hall became the home of the upscale family. Josh loved breaking boundaries between the audience and the actors. The audience experience was thrilling. We had a wonderful company and guest actors; they put so much of themselves into the process. It inspired me to make changes to the script, rewriting most all of the scenes. The play became a better play. This is something, this rewriting and reshaping that would be very hard to do if you were directing your own work.
How has the Axial grown over the years?
Finding a permanent home for the theatre and the acting classes, after 12 seasons. has been a huge deal artistically. We’ve now been on the campus of St. John’s Episcopal Church for three years, and will continue here. The benefit has been the ability to adapt the space to the needs of each play we present.
At Axial, we’re close enough to the city to invite fine actors and directors up as guests to work alongside our company of local Westchester professionals, many of whom have been in our Acting Program. To have a permanent year round company that speaks the same artistic language is quite a gift.
The training emphasizes the Strasberg and Meisner technique in classes for all levels of experience. We have a voice teacher and a wonderful improvisational movement teacher, Ryan Shams. David Deblinger, a founding member of LABrynth, who acted in “WELCOME,” has spent much of this season conducting acting workshops for the students in technique. We’re not a conservatory program, but try to offer all the disciplines an actor needs to become a complete performer. We’ve helped a lot of teenagers find placement in leading conservatories across the country. And many of our students have gotten their first professional acting experiences on the Axial stage. We’re very proud of that.
You’ve certainly become an important part of the community.
That’s a vitally important word in theatre: community. On most shows, actors come together for a short while and then everyone goes home. Great relationships may be created but once the show is over... So the idea of creating a company has always been attractive to me. As well as developing a working vocabulary which carries forward through the seasons, relationships and connections that can grow and strengthen and deepen the work.
Steppenwolf, LAByrinth, The Wooster Group are all influential to me. One of the most impactful theatre performances I’ve ever seen was Steppenwolf’s “Buried Child.” It absolutely blew me away. And recently seeing “August: Osage County.” There’s something about a group of people working together over a period of time – the roots you feel beneath the work. I felt the same thing when I saw Carol Churchill and Mark Wing Davey’s work on “Mad Forest,” and Peter Brook staging of “The Island” in London. Breathtaking memorable ensemble work. The idea of community, to me, is the foundation of what a theatre is all about. And creating a training program extends it out even further.
Here, in Westchester country, there’s a real belief in community in a social sense. Our task is to involve people from the larger community in the theatre work we’re offering. To make it relevant, immediate to their lives. People from all over the area take our acting classes, come to the shows, get to know the people in the company, become board members, work back stage. We’re constantly looking for ways to involve the folks in our work. My play, “WELCOME, This is a Neighborhood Watch Community” was developed this way. It’s not only a valuable way to perfect a play, it’s a vital part of including folks in the community. The process becomes personal to them. It’s something special when the audience feels connected to what’s happening on the stage.
