Behind the scenes of our performance prep, we had a chat with our directors, Jay Dürig and Jenni Gasser, and asked them a few questions about this year’s play “Kill Your Darlings” and the process of putting it on stage.
Q: What served as your inspiration, or multiple inspirations for writing the story?
JG: I kind of started it with all these tropes, “Kill your darlings,” “Chekhov’s gun”, a ghostwriter, and made them very literal in the play. I tried to fit in as many of these tropes as possible, and that was the starting point.
Obviously it evolved into much more. Once you have the characters, they become fleshed out, and it transforms beyond just the tropes that are there. I also had some literary inspirations, Shakespeare is obviously one, since we have a character named Shakespeare. Also Percy Shelley was a huge inspiration for Adrian; and there are many references to him.
General fantasy tropes are also present, if those count.
Q: Given the many tropes and literary figures of note in the play, off the top of your head, do you have a number how many there are?
JG: Not a number, no. But to list some, obviously Shakespeare again, people will get that. I think also Joyce. There’s not really a “reference” to Joyce, but it’s a name that kind of references an author. A lot of other books and authors get mentioned too.
JD: Mary Shelley, a bunch of horror authors. The Percy Shelley references, though if you’re not familiar with his history and his poems, I think those might get lost. Also, there are a lot of Easter eggs hidden in plain view. If you’re familiar with it, you’d be like, “oh,” but if you’re not, I think you can still follow the plot easily, and it would just be a funny moment that happens, even if it hasn’t got a deeper meaning for the audience.
Q: What made you want to collaborate on bringing the story to the stage?
JG: When writing, I knew I wanted to direct it, but I didn’t want to do it alone. I needed someone who could help me out. It kind of fell into place when I was looking for someone, and Jay was also very interested in directing. Then we had some talks and were like, okay, we do have a very similar vision, and that can work.
JD: During the previous production, I knew you were writing a play, or planning on it, and the concept very much spoke to me as a person who loves literature as well.
I also just trusted Jenni and her capabilities of writing a really cool play. I had already seen her Halloween play, so I knew her writing style and knew that I would love to play a part in creating a live version of it.
Q: As co-directors, how did you divide your roles, and how would you say you complemented each other during rehearsals?
JG: I think Jay has more of an organizational overview all the time. Also, you know how to give better feedback to actors.
JD: No, I disagree. I think the split is more logistical. Jenni has way more of a grasp of the emotion behind things, since it’s the characters she’s written and she knows how they should come across to the audience. Meanwhile I’m just like, “don’t stand like that.”
Q: So it’s framed a bit like “staging” versus “emotion”?
JD: I mean, we both do both, but I think proportionately, we did one more than the other respectively.
JG: When we say emotions, I think what I was referring to was, I tend to say, “okay, you should feel like this,” while Jay is better at guiding how people should move in order to convey that emotion. So it’s a tag-team effort.
Q: Were there ever moments where you disagreed, and how did the play being written by just one of you affect the dynamic in these cases?
JD: I think Avery is specifically one of the characters where I have a bit of a different interpretation, or view, or feeling about it. We discussed this just recently. There’s the open-endedness of how people can interpret it, and I fall into one side of how I interpret it and not the other one, but I think Jenni is like, “both are possible, and both are okay, and we don’t need to lean into one over the other.”
Though “disagree” is a bit of a strong word. We tend to have very similar opinions, and I don’t tend to push my “agenda,” so to speak. At the end of the day, I will obviously defer to Jenni if it’s something she is passionate about because, well, the play is her baby. That said, she’s never been so stubborn that I feel like I can’t suggest something if I do have another idea. Then we usually just talk it out and compromise if it feels like we’re not on the same exact page.
JG: I think when we have different ideas, we try to combine them, or we discuss them together with our assistant directors.
JD: Or we just try out both and then realize that one way feels a lot better. It was overall very easy-going in that sense, and there’s never been a distinct moment where we butted heads.
Q: Did the rehearsal process change the way you interpreted some characters or executed on their relationships in the play?
JG: I think all of them are very similar to my idea. It’s not so much the rehearsal process itself; it’s more the actors and what they bring to the character. When I wrote Will for example, he was much more arrogant and slimy, and now, with how Nayan portrays him, you actually feel sympathy for him.
JD: I think in general there’s such a difference between what words on a paper gave me as a feeling and how I now see the characters being portrayed by the actors that we chose, and it just keeps reaffirming why we chose the people that we did, because I think they encompass something that could only have been brought to life through their acting. Like Adrian’s humor as a character. I was initially like, total idiot, but William brings a very humorous aspect to it. Or Jordan, with the down-to-earthness: that aspect of the character has just been brought to the forefront.
And Helen, Anastasia also makes us laugh our asses off every time she chooses to do a very slight gesture that makes Helen so much more embodied through her actions. I’m like, yeah, no, Helen would totally act like that. It’s in those details that the actors brought the characters to life and made them truly three-dimensional.
It was part of the character originally, but now it takes on a new shape and meaning through their performances.
Q: Did it change any part of the production itself?
E: Yes—sometimes improv ideas become permanent. For instance, Ophelia officially writing fan fiction started as an improv joke, and now she mentions it on stage.
G: As an ad-lib!
Q: Which actor is the most, or least, like their character in real life?
JD: I don’t think any of them are that similar.
JG: It’s more like there are moments where you’re like, “oh yeah, that is a very in-character moment.” I remember Lexi asking the difference between a biography and an autobiography.
JD: That’s such an Emerald question to ask. Obviously there’s always going to be one aspect of a character that you can relate to because you feel it in your own personality. That is something actors draw on and I think that is a tendency in our cast as well. But there’s not a standout in the sense that someone is so far on that spectrum that they’re so much like that character.
JG: I think it’s very even in regard to people having similarities. A person who is least like their character… I would say Nahuel. He is way more cheerful than Harry, and way, way nicer than him.
JD: I think we’d have a problem if someone were like Harry and playing the role at the same time.
Q: If you could bring one of the characters to life, which of them would you most want to meet and spend time with?
JD: My instinct is Tempest. I feel like we could sing musical songs together and vibe and complain about our siblings. I just feel like I’d vibe with Tempest the most out of all of them.
JG: I think for me it would be Jordan. Jordan is just so caring, open to everyone, and easy to talk to. And also, I mean, she likes horror. I like horror.
JD: But also, everyone is so dramatic in this play, and I think those are the two more grounded characters. If they were real-life people, you could actually stand them.
Q: They’re the ones playing it straight in a cast of melodramatics.
JD: Yeah. It’s over the top in certain respects. For example, Emerald is ditzy but no one in real life would be that ditzy all of the time.
Q: Were any characters especially difficult or easy to direct?
JD: I think Adrian was a hard one because you have to toe the line between douchiness and your audience still wanting to root for him. It has to be a mixture between choosing to play it off as a gag, which then makes people think, “this is an idiot”, versus still having sincere moments and going “no, there’s a reason why A, B, and C have a connection to this person”. With Adrian specifically, I remember having to work on that; it wasn’t just there off the bat.
JG: I think Harry is the same, because he is so down all the time that it can veer into whininess and almost childishness, which then becomes too annoying for the audience too quickly. So there was also a bit of “we have to tone down the douchey and annoying.”
When it comes to easy characters, I think Emerald and Tempest. Lexi and Stefan had a very good grasp of their characters early on, and practice has been more about movement, because they had chemistry from the start.
Q: What relationship dynamic did you most enjoy directing or watching on stage?
JG: That’s an easy one for me.
JD: I think I know what you want to say. We probably have the same one.
JG: Adrian, Joyce and Will?
JD: Yeah, the chaotic love triangle. It’s just so entertaining. It’s easy to slip into tropes for love triangles, but Jenni did it right. She did a love triangle where everyone is kind of involved rather than two people pointing to one person. They play off each other brilliantly. There’s a lot of laughter, there’s a lot of drama, and the tide switches so many times. You never know which way it’s going to go or which way it’s going to end, but boy, is that ending satisfying.
Q: Given this play is a mix of comedy and tragedy, how would you say you approached balancing the tone?
JG: I think the tragedy and comedy kind of split between plots, because obviously the main plot with Harry is a tragedy. But then we have the subplots with Adrian, Joyce and Will, and also Emerald and Tempest, which lean more into the comedy. But even if there’s kind of a split there, you can find moments of tragedy in the comedic plots—characters being vulnerable despite being outlandish. And there are also a lot of comedic elements where the other characters often unintentionally make fun of Harry, but obviously this affects him and adds to the tragedy.
JD: Absolutely. There’s also the thing of people laughing because they feel uncomfortable with the situation, or because humor is a way you cope with sad things and uncomfortable things. I think there is definitely an aspect of that in those moments. You latch on to the one thing that could be a bit light-hearted because you want to balance it out. I think the audience will probably appreciate it.
And yes, it is making fun of Harry sometimes through his patheticness, but it’s also just a moment between true friends who are giggling about something, and it makes the people so well-rounded, because no one’s life is only tragic or only funny. Everyone has these moments. We just tried to emulate that.
Q: Without revealing too much, what moment do you think audiences will be most surprised by?
JD: I think there’s an aspect of this that brings together a lot of different genres of plays or performances, and I think certain genres they will expect and others they might not. We have a few switch-ups, and one or two might take them by surprise.
JG: Yeah, I don’t know how to go much deeper without spoiling anything. But I think there are quite a number of moments where something happens out of the blue.
Q: What is your favorite line in the script? Or maybe line delivery could also play into it.
Both laugh.
JD: I think the one we also have on the flyer: “makes for a great story.” Out of context, it’s not very much, but I think it encompasses what the play is about. Also the way that Emerald says “Tempest.” It’s not even the lines themselves, but the way Lexi delivers them. Everything she says in that specific voice is funny.
JG: I think also Anastasia with the southern accent. It’s so funny. It’s a choice that paid off a thousand percent. Also the Scottish accents that are used for two line deliveries are just hilarious.
JD: Yeah, that’s a good moment. Also, I think Jordan and Harry’s balcony scene. Their friendship is at the heart of the play, and there’s a quite prolonged scene where there are a lot of tender moments, but a lot of tense moments as well. I don’t want to spoil, but I think one line our producers liked was, “There are better nights to play the tortured artist”
Q: Which fantasy character diverges most from their “reality-in-the-play” character?
JG: Poppy and Daisy. I think those two are very distinct. Daisy is a rounded character who has her own aspirations and thoughts, and also how Vivi plays her — she’s very cool, and it’s clear that she’s just a friend to Harry. Meanwhile, Poppy is this over-the-top cliché damsel in distress. There is a stark contrast.
But I also think of Jordan and Morgan, because you obviously see Morgan first and expect this evil person, and then Jordan is just so nice and down-to-earth.
JD: I agree.
Q: Which fantasy character diverges most from their “reality-in-the-play” character?
JD: The ending, of course, but otherwise…
JG: I do think the whole fantasy-reality aspect that is in the play: I hope the audience questions how much was actually real, and what was just fantasy, or whose fantasy it even was
JD: Absolutely. Like, what can you believe? Or who should you believe? Which version of events? I feel like you could either fall in one category or the other depending on who you were rooting for, or who you’re more sympathetic towards, or just how you interpreted the play.
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Blueprint Masquerades 