Playlist profile: John Miller Stephany

John Miller is a familiar name to any actor who’s ever wanted to be in a play at the Guthrie Theater. As Associate Artistic Director, he not only directs plays there, he also coordinates casting and sits in on countless auditions. John is also known to be a tireless audience member at other venues, constantly on the lookout for fresh talent and new takes on known faces. With the upcoming regime change at our community’s flagship theater, the future is uncertain for many. I spoke to John at length about his artistic past and about what his way forward might look like. How did you start as a performer? I grew up in upstate New York, in Rochester, and my family was a very musical family. My mother was a music teacher, my sister was a music teacher. We were all very involved with music of some kind. I had a really beautiful boy soprano voice as a kid, so I started as a singer. There’s a school in Rochester called the Eastman School of Music which is a really good school and I studied there as a part of their children’s choir. The man who was in charge of the choir there recruited me to be part of the Vienna Boys Choir. And my mother said no way could we do it because I was the youngest of six, and she wasn’t in a position to just move to Austria with me. So I started as a singer, then I remember when I was about 12, a local community theater was doing a production of Mame, and they needed a young Patrick. So somebody called my mother and said I understand your son sings. Then I went to NYU for acting. When I was in my mid-20’s I realized that I really didn’t want to be an actor or singer. By that point I had been working in producing and administration for The Acting Company in New York, and I realized I was much more interested in producing and directing. So I segued from one side of the footlights to the other. When did you decide to make it your profession? It’s been that way for as long as I remember. I just knew as a young person that I was going to be involved in the theater. There was never any question about that. Every once in a while, even now, on a bad day I’ll think, maybe I should go to law school. I’m kind of old for that, though. But really, in terms of “What are you going to do when you grow up,” it was always this. Why do you do this for a career? This makes me sound like a terribly un-rounded person, but it’s the only thing I find interesting. If there was something else that I found as compelling and consuming and fascinating, I would probably do that. But there’s nothing that interests me more than live theater. So that’s where I need to be. What keeps you going? I love collaborating with talented, creative artists. Collaboration is the joy of theater, and, if you have trouble, it’s also the heartache. I find it really rewarding, as a director, to take all these gifted artists and weave together their contributions and create a single event that is hopefully seamless and of a piece. I think that’s really, really interesting. What is a production you’re proud of? I think I’m proud of everything I’ve worked on but for different reasons. I recently worked with the fourth year BFA students [at the University of Minnesota], and I’m really proud of how hard they worked, and because it was a difficult play, a Gorky play, I was very pleased with their growth. Now that’s a student production with limited resources, so it’s very different than, say, a big musical at the Guthrie where you have professionals working at the top of their game. But in everything that I’ve done, there’s something that I’m very pleased with. What is a production that you were disappointed in? To back into an answer, I think I throw everything I have into whatever I’m working on. I feel like I do everything I can, and it consumes me. And after I’m done with it, I never want to go back and revisit it. I know there are some directors who go back and direct the same play over and over again. There are so many plays I want to work on that, in a way, I feel like, I’ve done what I can with that one, at least where I was in my life at that time. So when I look back I think there are probably things in every production I’ve worked on that maybe missed the mark in one way or another. But on the whole I think I did the best I could with the resources I had, the collaborators I had, and who I was, at the time. And I’m ready to let that go. What are some of the plays you’d like to work on in the future? For years I’ve wanted to direct The Time of Your Life, but it’s huge, so it’s really expensive, but I think it’s a beautiful play. It won the Pulitzer Prize, but it’s not done much so people don’t know it that well. I would really like to direct All’s Well That Ends Well. That’s a play that interests me a lot. In terms of musical theater, I would like a shot at Kiss Me Kate at some point. I would also love to do a Phaedra. I would love to do a Hedda. Are there themes or ideas that race through the plays you’re drawn to? What interests me is the specific text. What I try to do when I direct a play is – I love research, I’m a bit of a nerd for research and dramaturgy – I try to find out as much about the play as I can and get as clear a sense as I can of what the playwright’s intention was. And sometimes the playwright’s intention might be as simple as, to make ‘em laugh. There are certain plays like The Importance of Being Earnest which is one of the greatest plays ever written, but it’s really not about anything except some fantastic language and some really good laughs. So I try to figure out the playwright’s intention and figure out how I can make that clear and relevant to the audience who’s going to see this production. Then I try to stay out of the way. I’m not particularly enamored of high concept productions. Although I think sometimes a high concept does help a play in terms of speaking to an audience. But on the whole I like to think of my work as being invisible. I like a clarity and a point of view, but I don’t want the sense that I’m injecting myself between the audience and the play. Do you approach musicals and straight plays differently and are you attracted to one more than the other? I don’t approach them differently. And at this point I think given the choice to do a play or a musical, I’d probably choose the play. Because? I love collaboration, but with a musical, the collaboration is to the nth degree. There are lots of cooks: the choreographer, the sound designer, the orchestrator… so many people involved. Actually, as I say that, I love collaboration and that’s great, but it can take a lot out of you, to work with so many people and get them all on the same page. With a play there are fewer moving parts. Who are some artists who have inspired you? I’ve had an enormously lucky upbringing in terms of the theater. When I started with The Acting Company, running errands and making copies when I was 21, I was working with John Houseman and Michael Kahn and Ellen Schneider and eventually Zelda Fichandler and Michael Langham, Mark Lamos, the list just goes on and on. I met all these amazing, amazing people. And that’s where I met Joe [Dowling]. So there were a lot of people who had a profound influence on me in terms of their artistry, so it’s hard to sort of pick one or two, because I think I learned something from all of those people. For example, Zelda Fichandler is amazing in terms of her writing about the art of direction and running a theater. Each one has something. As an audience member, are there productions that stick with you? Absolutely. There was a Teatro Piccolo production of The Tempest that was done at BAM a while back, but it was done in Italian and I didn’t speak a word of Italian, but it was an amazing event. I remember as a student, standing for both parts of Nicholas Nickleby in one day. The original production when it came to New York. That was an awesome event. Most recently, I’ve sort of written off, probably unfairly to a certain degree, the commercial theater. I’m becoming very disenchanted with it. But I just saw a play on Broadway, with a number of actors who have a history with the Guthrie, called The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time. It was fantastic, one of the best things I’ve seen in a long time. It was highly theatrical, but it was also very accessible and captivating. It made you get inside the head of someone who is autistic. It was really beautifully done and that really excited me, and those events don’t really happen, because I see so much theater now. Very rarely do I leave a theater performance and think that was sensational. This really was. You occupy an interesting position, in that you’re very visible as an arts administrator because you run casting at the Guthrie. You also have a high visibility as a director. How do the two jobs relate to each other, or do they? I think that they are integrated in my life. For example, when I’m directing a play I can’t let my ongoing administrative duties go. I just have to shift my energies and give more of my focus to the production. And then when I’m not directing, as an administrator, I still feel like I’m using artistic muscles. I don’t determine casting at the Guthrie, that really is determined by the individual director, with the approval of Joe Dowling. But I certainly have in voice in terms of putting people forward and recommending them. Because sometimes actors, you know I see a lot of work in town, they don’t always audition well even though they’re terrific actors. And I’m able to tell a guest director, “They’re capable of doing so much better than they just did.” Or vice versa – sometimes an actor will give a great audition and you know that’s all you’re ever going to get out of them. So I think I still continue to use an artistic sensibility even in my administrative work. One of the hallmarks of a good director is the ability to manage: manage time, manage people. So those two things are not separate, they’re intermingled. As a director and a casting person, what are the qualities you appreciate most and look for in actors? I really appreciate intelligence. Also a collaborative spirit. I love actors who are open and willing to take direction. Which doesn’t necessarily mean I don’t want to be questioned, I think there’s a give and take. I don’t think anyone in a rehearsal room has a monopoly on good ideas. That’s one of the joys of the theater. Your colleague may have a great idea that you didn’t think of that fits in with your overall vision of the production, and if it works and it’s great, it’s just going to make you look better. So I don’t think I have a huge ego in terms of the work. I have a point of view and of course at the end of the day, if I feel strongly about something I will insist upon that. But I’m open to ideas so I like actors who are collaborative. I love actors who are able to take notes joyfully and make direction work. You’re not a native Minnesotan, but you’ve been here a long time. Almost 19 years. So how would you characterize your time here and what do you think the future looks like for you? I’ve been enormously blessed in my life, and I’m so grateful for all the opportunities I’ve had here at the Guthrie. I’ve learned so much, and I think I’ve become a stronger artist because of my time here. In terms of the future, I have no idea what the future holds. I think at this point I’m open to all possibilities. I love the Twin Cities, but I came here for a job, and if there isn’t something that is artistically satisfying for me, I’m not sure I would stay in the Twin Cities. I’m a bit of a workaholic, for better or worse, and so much of my identity is my work and what I do. And that’s probably not really healthy but it’s the way I’m wired. So I would certainly welcome under the right circumstances staying in the Twin Cities, whether it’s the Guthrie or not, because I love it here. But on the other hand, I don’t think I would stay in the community without something satisfying to do as an artist. I hope my luck continues to hold.