by Rebecca Sparks
Contributing writer
The first thing about being a good director is that you have to be a good story teller, according to Dell McLain, chair of the department of art, communication and theatre. Among all the different hats McLain wears in his position, the one most often seen by students in the theatre department is that of director.
His road to becoming the director he is today is an adventure. McLain said, “I didn’t understand what a director did until I came to Southeastern.”
McLain came to Southeastern in 1984 and worked with two directors who would influence his directing, among other things, greatly.
The first was Molly Risso, who was the head of the theatre department when McLain was a student. She also founded the Oklahoma Shakespearean Festival, which McLain had an active role in when he was a student at Southeastern and continues to do so today.
“Molly gave me a love in terms of directing for pictureization,” McLain said, adding that she had a “beautiful, grand, old-world, romantic” way of staging a production.
Not only did Risso teach McLain about visuals, but she also gave him a love of Shakespearean language. “And if you can get a love of Shakespearean language, that can be useful for any playwright and author,” said McLain.
Risso was a great editor, McLain said, adding that she would cut unnecessary characters and certain scenery in exchange for velvet gowns on the women.
The other Southeastern director who had a major influence on McLain’s directing was Ken Rish. “Ken Rish gave me a love of style,” said McLain. McLain also credits Rish for his understanding of giving a play a “great sense of action.”
The marriage of these two ways of directing inspired, and continues to inspire, McLain. “ I am a product of the way theater should be done,” said McLain.
He went on to the University of New Orleans for his Masters of Fine Arts. Studying to be an actor, the head of his department, Phil Carnell, said he needed a “better global view.” This would help McLain’s acting abilities by opening him up to the world around him, and to achieve this, McLain needed to look at actors from a director’s standpoint.
McLain had the most professional experience of all the graduate students his first year at the University of New Orleans, so Carnell chose him to teach some undergraduate acting classes, remembered McLain.
His first full-time teaching “gig” was at Austin College. The first full production he directed was “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.” McLain said that this was a “brave and foolish” decision, due to the magnitude of that show. McLain said that he coached the show more than he directed.
McLain has worked on “Sweeney Todd” three times both in acting and directing positions and will add a fourth time this spring when he directs it as part of Theatre at Southeastern’s 2012-13 season. “Sweeney Todd” will be performed in Montgomery Auditorium Feb. 21-23.
Many things influence McLain in his directing process, especially music. In 2011, the Oklahoma Shakespearean Festival presented Shakespeare’s “Two Gentlemen of Verona.” McLain had originally planned to do a very traditional version of this show. However, after hearing pieces of music from the 1960s and 1970s, he said he decided to turn this show into a groovy experience by adding music, clothing, furniture and artwork from this period.
“Having the ability to make magic happen” is what McLain thinks of when he thinks about directing. Theater is often coined as a heightened reality, and a director’s job is to bring order to this chaos and to “tell it with lively and quick spirit,” said McLain.
“Every rehearsal process, ever rehearsal cycle that we do, it’s a four week master class,” McLain said.
McLain said one of the most exciting recent developments for the theatre department is the renovation of Montgomery Auditorium. Through a lot of hard work by McLain and many others, Montgomery Auditorium has a new state of the art lighting and fly system.
“To suddenly have Montgomery Auditorium have the ability to make magic again through clever lighting, to be able to fly things in or out, suddenly makes it a real storytelling theater space again,” said McLain.
McLain has recently begun to write his own productions. This past summer the Oklahoma Shakespearean Festival produced “Four Guys Names Al” written and directed by McLain, a cabaret piece about four workers stuck at work in a blizzard having to put on the Jerry Lewis Telethon. This show went on to have a repeat engagement and toured to the Rialto Theatre in Denison, Texas.
McLain also wrote a Christmas version of the “Al’s” called “‘Al’ Be Home for Christmas,” which was performed Dec. 14, 2012 in Montgomery Auditorium.
He is currently writing the children’s show for Theatre at Southeastern that will have a one night public showing April 11.
As a director, McLain has influenced many aspiring actors. Mindamora Rocha is a sophomore musical theatre major from Gainesville, Texas who has worked with McLain on many shows including “Xanadu,” Romeo and Juliet,” Much Ado About Nothing” and “A Christmas Carol.”
Thinking back to her first impression of McLain, Rocha said all she could think was, “I hope I really don’t suck.” McLain is a name theatre majors hear a lot about even before they meet him. They know that he is an important man and that they will be working with him for the rest of their Southeastern careers, said Rocha.
“With Dell, I think you kind of learn that theater is always two-sided. There is always time for fun and being artsy, and then there is a time to be more serious with your art,” Rocha said.
From a teacher to a director, Rocha said that McLain is no different. “No one’s sugar coating anything with you,” Rocha said. “It’s real”.
Another view of McLain’s directing is through the eyes of his stage managers, the people who assist the director in rehearsals and meetings and are in charge of making sure the cast is where they need to be at the right time.
Taylor Donaldson is a senior theatre management major from Idabel who has worked under McLain as a stage manager many times and says that stage managing for McLain is “an adventure.”
“Dell is always really good about making sure the stage manager is doing what their supposed to be, as well as everyone else,” said Donaldson.
Donaldson said one of his favorite things about stage managing for McLain is that no matter what kind of show they are working on, when the cast gets “crunchy,” as McLain would say, he’s always so wacky that he puts everybody in a better spirit
This past summer, Donaldson got an internship working as an assistant with a company that produces many successful shows in New York City. “If I had not worked for Dell before I went to New York, I probably would have crashed and burned in the first week,” said Donaldson. McLain’s way of making people learn to multitask and take charge has helped Donaldson and many other students in the professional world, according to Donaldson.