Gods don’t die; they just change form. And what if one of the most revered Gods of all time— especially to those in the theatre community— were to reappear in a different form, come down to earth and hope to bring about a change of days? Then you sound like you might be prepared for Iron Crow Theatre’s production of Madeleine George’s Hurricane Diane. And if you’d like to be more prepared, you can check out this exclusive interview that TheatreBloom was able to conduct with the show’s director, Natka Bianchini.
Thank you so much for talking with us; this sounds like a fascinating piece appearing as production number three in Iron Crow’s “Season of Defiance.” Why don’t we start with who you are and your involvement with the show and with the company?
Natka Bianchini: I am Natka Bianchini and I am directing Hurricane Diane. When I’m not directing a show, I have two hats. The first one is I’m a resident artist. There’s about a dozen or so folks and they are spread across different roles; some are actors primarily, some are designers primarily, and it’s similar to how New York Theatre Workshop has the ‘usual suspects.’ We’re all folks that the company has worked with multiple times and for actors it means that you can go straight to callbacks, you don’t have attend first auditions, which is nice. For me, that means that I am a director that they like to work with and this is our fourth collaboration.
That’s fantastic. What were the other three collaborations?
Natka: Cloud 9 (by Caryl Churchill; produced in 2018) was the first one. The Mystery of Love and Sex (by Bathsheba Doran, produced in 2019), and then Collective Rage: A Play in Five Betties (by Jen Silverman, produced in 2019.)
And you said you had another Iron Crow Hat? Resident Artist and…?
Natka: I’m also on the board! I’m one of the two resident artists who is also a board member. The other one is Nicholas Miles.
That’s awesome. You’re a resident artist, on the board, this is your fourth collaboration with Iron Crow, so why Hurricane Diane? What was the draw for this piece? Why were you interested in it?
Natka: Yeah. So the play is new. Well, new-ish. The first production was in 2017. That was at Two River Theatre in New Jersey. I didn’t learn about it until the New York premiere, which I think was in 2019, and that was where I first read about it. Becca Blackwell, who is a fantastic non-binary actor, played the role of the character Diane. I was super intrigued when I heard the premise, which is the Greek God Dionysus back on earth as this butch, lesbian gardener from Vermont. I thought “that sounds interesting!” And it sounded like a play that would fit the mission and the ethos of Iron Crow.
Because of my long relationship with the company, I sometimes get to be part of Sean (Artistic Director Sean Elias) conversation of season planning, and I remember coming to him and saying I had my eye on the script and that we should try to get the rights. And of course because of the pandemic, everything was slowed down so we had to wait a long time for an answer from Concord Theatricals. At the same time, the company was getting excited about Mankind (the first show of Iron Crow’s season, by Robert O’Hara, directed by resident artist Ann Turiano.)
You’ve probably heard Sean say that when we thought we were going to come back to producing in-person full productions after just one year it felt more like it was going to be a celebration, a return, a revelry. But then shit hit the fan. The racial pandemic, Roe v Wade, and all of this stuff. We realized we needed to respond to what was happening right now. So Hurricane Diane is about climate change and it just felt like a really relevant piece. It also mirrored so nicely because Mankind is written by a male playwright and has an all male cast, and this is written by a female playwright with an all female and non-binary cast. It balanced so nicely in the season.
You sound very, very excited about it. What has been the most interesting part of working on Hurricane Diane with Iron Crow Theatre up to this point?
Natka: What I love about this is piece— and it’s the line I started with for my designer team and it’s the line I started with for my cast— we start in realism and we end in epic and myth and Greek tragedy. It’s such a cool journey; it’s 90 minutes, no intermission. It opens and you think, “we’re in a nice, upscale kitchen, in a suburban kitchen in New Jersey, and these women are having Sunday morning coffee.” It feels so cute and quaint, so naturalistic and realistic. But by the end, these women have transformed into Bacchae and there’s chanting and drums! It’s full-on epic. And it’s really cool to have a genre shift at the end.
That sounds amazing and intense. You have a show that goes from realism to epic in 90 minutes with no intermission. What has been your biggest challenge with a piece like this?
Natka: That shift at the end. There’s a scene where Diane, who is the human form of Dionysus, is looking for four people whom she can convert to become her acolytes. Once she identifies them and sort of— turns them, if you will— they perform this ritual. At that point there is a lot of unison, there’s chanting, there’s choreography-dance-movement stuff that’s happening. Figuring all of that out and making it translate has been a huge challenge.
The other thing that we’re just starting to discover, as we’re getting the set up this week and we will roll into tech next week, is the storm. There is a giant, epic storm at the end of the play. So how do we do the storm? What does it sound like? What does it look like? In my ideal, fantasy-4-million-dollar-budget version, it would literally rain on stage. I don’t think it’s going to rain at Theatre Project. But we do want to get wind and thunder and lightning.
You spoke about how this is a female and non-binary cast; how is the cast shaping up? Who are they? Are they resident artists? Are they new to Iron Crow? Tell us about your cast!
Natka: We have Sabriaya Shipley, who is playing Diane and Sabriaya is new to Iron Crow. She is a Philly-based artist who uses she/they pronouns, identifying as both a non-binary artist and a black woman. Sabriaya is fantastic and such a great find! She has a background in community engaged art, spoken-word poetry, she’s just really, really terrific. Then we have Canter O’May understudying for the Diane role.
I saw that on the Iron Crow website and Canter O’May appears to be a very different understudy.
Natka: Yes! Canter is a very different understudy. The only instructions that playwright Madeleine George and Concord Theatricals’ licensing has for Diane is that the role not be played by a cis-male, which gives us a whole world to play with. There are no restrictions or specificity in terms of race. The script says “the character is a butch lesbian, the actor does not need to be.” Canter is a resident artist with Iron Crow, who uses they/them pronouns. We are thrilled to have them. And if Canter has the opportunity to go on for Diane it will be a very different show and that’s really exciting. We live in a world now where understudies are not only a valued ‘absolute’ in shows but we’re finding that they may in fact end up going on. This is the first time that we’ve done that this season, having understudies. And they have both gone on in the first two shows earlier this season.
I think it’s fantastic that Iron Crow has adapted the need for understudies.
Natka: Yes. So with a cast of five, we have three understudies. And the reason for that is that the character of Renee needs to be a person of color. We have two black women— Kayla Leacock (member of Actor’s Equity) who has come to us from New York and she’s playing Renee. And then we have Ivy Brown understudying for her. Then we have three other members of the cast— Melinda Nanovsky she is playing Carol. And she is brand new to us. Then we have Hana Clarice who is a resident artist and she was Collective Rage, she was just in Head Over Heels, she’s playing Beth. And then our last cast member, again brand new to Iron Crow is Melanie Kurstin, she’s really terrific and she’s playing such a fun character; she’s playing Pam. The description says “Pam is always wearing animal prints and jewelry that could land a plane.” Think big and loud and blingy. And finally we have Kristen Stickley, who was just in Head Over Heels, is swinging for the roles of Carol, Beth, and Pam. And that’s a big ask! But that’s our group of eight. Everyone is being paid; understudies are paid. Of the five principals, everybody is new except for Hana.
That is amazing. What is it like for you as a woman who identifies as a woman, being in a room full of female-identifying individuals, with a play written by a woman, all about— women. What has that been like for you and what does that mean to you?
Natka: I have different answers for that. One answer is that to me this sort of feels like a sequel to Collective Rage, which was also a five-woman cast with a female playwright. It’s a wheelhouse that feels very familiar to me. But one of the things that is really interesting to me and I’ve put it in the director’s note, is these conversations we’ve been having in the room. When Diane gets her acolytes and performs her initiation ritual, she is now Dionysus. So what are we looking at? We think of Dionysus as a male, right? Because that’s how history has brought him to our attention. Yet the person playing them identifies as female and non-binary. And of course there’s this sexual element of the acolytes being initiated, so how do we categorize all of that? We don’t. We can’t.
That’s what’s really fun about it. You might think, “I’m seeing two women who are kissing” but one of them is Dionysus. And if Dionysus is a man, what am I seeing? And Dionysus is a God and does a God have a gender? So that has been really cool and fun to talk about and explore. It comes up. We were working on costumes over the weekend and Diane has this costume change and there is this bandeau top. And I said “I don’t think a butch lesbian would wear a bandeau top.” It’s for a costume reveal and there’s a flannel that goes over it. But then the actor said, “But it’s so tight it’s almost like a binder. So maybe Diane is binding.” And I thought that was really interesting because I hadn’t considered that angle!
Is there a moment in the show that defines what the show means to you on a personal level?
Natka: That is such a good question. I don’t want to give it away. But there is a stage direction that says, “the storm destroys Carol.” And that’s just what it says. It says the storm grows and swells. And then it says, “the storm destroys Carol.” What does that mean!? I actually looked at the New York Times review from the New York premiere, and it was a very complimentary review, but it said that there were some things that the production might have missed. And the reviewer said it wasn’t until reading the script after seeing it that they realized a major plot point that didn’t read, and while it wasn’t specifically named, I’m guess that it’s “the storm destroys Carol.” Destruction can have so many different meanings and that is something that we’re working on. I’m hoping that if we get it right that moment will feel like a “wow” moment.
What is it that you are hoping people are going to take away from coming and experiencing Hurricane Diane?
Natka: Of course we always want our audiences to feel a couple of different things, like are artistic excellence. We want to push ourselves in terms of the professionalism of the performances, in terms of the design. And we want our audience to feel safe, included, and welcome. I think with this particular production, it’s really thinking about this moment that we’re in, in terms of climate change and how we can be good stewards of the world. How do we dream ourselves into a future that is more sustainable? That is what Madeleine George is really asking us to think about.
What I discovered when I was working in pre-production, asking ‘why would you take Greek Gods and mash them up into this production about climate change?’ Then I realized there is a line in the opening monologue where Diane refers to human lives as fruit-fly lives. You’re there and gone in the blink of an eye, compared to an immortal deity. It’s the perfect metaphor. Because if you’re an immortal deity, you can watch what’s happening to the earth over centuries and our human lifespan is no match for that. We’re really being asked to think not about a human lifespan but a planet lifespan. That’s what we’re asking the audience to come away with; thinking about the planet’s lifespan.
You’ve talked to us about the cast, tell me about your design team.
Natka: Of course! I’m working with Rowan Suder, who is a really terrific designer. I know them because I’m the head of the theatre program at Loyola, they are an alum of Loyola. Rowan was a former student of mine. I think they did the theatre minor but they really have a visual arts background. Rowan has designed all of my Iron Crow sets. They have such an interesting approach to set design because of that visual arts background. It some ways it can be very conceptual, which was very much true of the Collective Rage set, which had these very cool string installations, which they created.
For this show we’ve got a kitchen. And it has to be a kitchen. And it’s the same kitchen. Even though you move from house to house, it’s the same kitchen. The only reason that we know we’re in a different kitchen is because the dish towel has changed, which is hilarious. That is something we really have to play with to make it read to the audience. But the idea is that these are like cookie-cutter McMansions; they’re all the same. One of the things that we talked about— and this goes back to what I was saying earlier about starting in realism and ending in epic myth— it’s a kitchen and it needs to be recognizable as such but it doesn’t function at all realistically. This isn’t like Raisin in the Sun where she has to cook eggs. There is nothing written into the play that necessitates functionality of the kitchen. The women drink coffee and they drink wine but you can do that in any room of your house. There is nothing in there— you don’t need a functioning sink, you don’t need a fridge, you don’t need appliances.
What I said to Rowan was that the most important thing about this kitchen is that it needs to have a center island because that’s where the conversation happens. And then the most important thing design-wise is that there is this idea of the inside and this idea of the outside. In the kitchen, and this is written into the script, there are French doors to the outside. The idea is that the kitchen is in the back of the house and you have these French doors that open onto your backyard. Those are used as a major entrance and exit point. The important thing here is that we have a sense of being in the kitchen, the constructed human-made world, and then the elements are outside. Remember the storm I mentioned? We had to figure out a way to show how, as the storm grows, how those elements literally come into the kitchen. That’s been fun! We have some ropes that are transforming into vines, roots, and weeds that will grow around the set. The idea of humans making their homes as this fortress against the elements and the power of the elements encroaching is what we’re working with.
It will look like a kitchen. It will not have appliances. But there will be cabinets and walls. No scaffolding. (It is an Iron Crow favorite but not my aesthetic.) There is a lot we’re going to be doing with light and sound, particularly with the storm. What does the storm sound like? We’re also using some hand-drums that you hold and bang, which comes into play during the epic-myth part of the show.
You mentioned Rowan is your set designer, is Rowan also in charge of lighting and sound design?
Natka: No, no. Jane Schwartz is doing sound and she has done sound for both of the shows this season. And then Janine Vreatt, who is a resident artist, she’s doing the lights. Heather Johnson is doing the costumes. And she is nailing it! We have the realism and we have the epic. There are these lines like, ‘Diane takes off her raincoat. She’s all godded-up underneath.’ Godded-up. What does that mean? What does that look like? So that’s what we’re playing with here.
The play is called Hurricane Diane, and we as human beings have this phenomenon of naming our storms with very human names (for various reasons.) How does that sit with you in relation to this production?
Natka: There was a hurricane Diane in the 1950’s here in the US. North Carolina was the primary area where I think it hit and it was the first US storm to do over a billion dollars in damage. I think that George (playwright Madeleine George) is a very smart writer so she probably knew that. And obviously Diane is a play on Dionysus but I think naming the play that is referencing that storm. It’s interesting, because you’re making me think about it as you’re asking me this, but we give storms human names, storms are not human-generated events… except that humans are affecting the climate to make storms worse, more frequent, more destructive, etc.
Has there ever been a hurricane Natka?
Natka: Not to my knowledge! I mean there are other people on the planet named Natka but I have never met them.
What has being a part of Hurricane Diane meant to you; what are you learning about yourself as an Iron Crow resident artist, as a director, as a human being, as a person who might have an impact on climate change, as a person who makes art?
Natka: Wow, thank you, that is a deep and profound question. I think we’re all just reuniting with our artistic selves after this long wilderness and absence. Even though this is not my first post-covid directing project, it’s my first Iron Crow post-covid directing project. It just feels like such a coming home experience. For all of us who live and breathe the performing arts, I think it was a little like cutting off an appendage and we convinced ourselves, “Oh I don’t need to live with my left arm for a couple of years.” It’s just been such a treat to get it back, to get my left arm back and working. I directed Lysistrata, which is a Greek comedy, but I’ve never done a Greek tragedy so I’m really enjoying the chance to push myself in this new direction with that.
Is there anything else you want to say about the overall experience or about fitting such an epic production into Theatre Project?
Natka: Bruce (Technical Director Bruce Kapplin) has been amazing. He has allowed us to elevate what we’re doing so much so I am so grateful to him and his expertise. Also, and I was just writing about it this morning, we rehearsed for a couple weeks in December. Then we had a two-week break over the holidays, and we came back after New Year’s. We came back on January 3, 2023 and on January 3, 2023 the high temperature in Baltimore was 69 degrees. And we all had that moment of “oh, it’s so nice to be this warm” but then it’s also deeply unsettling because I’m not supposed to walk out of my house without a coat on January 3rd. I’m supposed to be cold this time of year. Every week we have worked on this show, it has allowed me to be present with what is happening to our climate. And what’s happening can so easily just become background noise. You know, open the New York Times, see the headlines, close them, and go about your day.
Working on this show has really put me in tune with that and made me so much more aware. Humans are just not good at thinking beyond our own lifespan or even our own personal sphere. We’re the first era of humans to really be able to get information from all over the world instantly. And that is very disorienting and challenging to figure out how to navigate. Especially with tragedy, it just becomes overwhelming. I think it’s because you’re not meant to hear about all of this all at once.
If you had to sum up the experience you’ve had with Hurricane Diane here at Iron Crow Theatre in just one word, what word would you use?
Natka: Intense!
Hurricane Diane plays January 20th through February 5th 2023 with Iron Crow Theatre in residence at Baltimore Theatre Project— 45 W. Preston Street in the Mt. Vernon district of Baltimore, MD. Tickets are available by calling the box office at 410-752-8558 or in advance online.
To read the review of Hurricane Diane by Leonard Taube, click here.
