November 6, 2012 | Theatre,

Interview with Mac Young from TALES FROM OVID

Dan Robert, Emerson College BA Theatre Studies: Acting ’13 and Creative Producer in Training for ArtsEmerson: The World On Stage, sat down for a chat with Mac Young, a spunky-sweet Whistler in the Dark ensemble member and local fringe actor, director, scenic designer and technician. Check out a slice of their nearly two hour-long conversation on local theatre,  post-college work and the desire to collaborate in this interview profile. 

Mac Young: I went into [Bennington] college not considering myself a “person of the theatre.” I was interested in academics, the social sciences, mostly, and was briefly interested in studying visual art. I actually think it was because I did improv extra-curricularly that in the second half of my freshman year I started taking theatre classes. And then it was this snowballing sort of thing where really briefly in my sophomore year I’m like, “So maybe my major should be social sciences AND theatre!” And then: “Okay so, maybe I don’t have enough time for the social sciences because of all this stupid theatre. Goddammit!’” Y’know?

Dan Robert: By accident.

MY: Yeah that’s how it happened, and at some point in there I started feeling like it was something I could claim. College was awesome. There was so much access to great resources and such a ferment of excitement all the time– everyone there was so involved in their work. And the coolest people were the people who were doing the coolest stuff. We all loved and cherished and prized that.

DR: That’s exactly what I wonder now, as someone in college, how does that transfer when you’re then just in a city trying to find that same community that celebrates one another’s cool work?

MY: I left college feeling really empowered to do work on my own. I spent my four years just on a whim putting shows together– stuff I would just be terrified to do now, because what changes is that all of that support, at least initially, is gone and the resources are gone. But you haven’t changed: the enthusiasm, the desire is still there. And I was very frustrated for a long time. At first it kind of ‘undid’ a lot of the things that college did for me.

DR: Like what?

MY: That free access to initiative where I would be talking about some dumb idea and then say, “Ya know, we could kinda just do it! What if we talk to so-and-so ‘cause he plays the tuba, right? He would probably be totally into this and would love an excuse to play, right? So what do you think about, like, the week after next.” And then you get out of college and it’s just not so easy to do that. I think a lot of my initial readiness to dive became cautiousness instead. I think that’s a positive thing for me, because all of the stuff that I took for granted in college I now have to provide. The freedom to just do some wild thing, now, where I am, it comes with the foreknowledge of pain. (laughing) To phrase it very strongly, right? But you gotta figure out how to be good with the pain, and you gotta figure out how to still want do the work knowing that it’s gonna hurt at some point.

DR:  Part of what I’m hearing now, too, is that there’s a call to have clarity of ideas: knowing what you’re doing, having a set intention, because how can you corral these people who have day jobs and these spaces that cost a ton of money without clarity of intention or idea?

MY: Right! Like you’re saying, knowing that it’s not free, why would you put that effort into some dumb thing where Joey plays his tuba? And if it is essentially free – not just in terms of money but in terms of other costs – of course, do that project. But if it’s not free, if it’s really not free, we can leave that one on the cutting room floor. If you have one idea you can have another one, you can have a better one. I’ve come to feel that one of the primary artistic skills that you hone with time is just taste. But not taste like “good taste” like, “Those are great drapes for the room” or whatever, but the ability of discernment. It’s the ability to make fine distinctions between one thing and another: two shades of grey that are very close, and you need to say this one’s a little darker and this one’s a little lighter and the lighter one is right here. It’s taste with the ideas you get behind and push forward, but it’s also what you take into the rehearsal hall and shape your work with.

DR: So when you arrived in Boston how did you find folks that matched your taste?

MY: When I first left college, I could have done the thing that everybody does which is start a theatre company. And I’m really, really, really glad I didn’t!  That being said, there are people who start theatre companies and I’m glad they do because there need to be companies. But the me that studied directing as a 21-year-old took a back seat for a while, and I didn’t really feel that ‘out there’ about being an actor either. But over a period of time, I re-solidified what I was doing, and in a very natural way – and one that I did not direct as a conscious person. I think we trick ourselves into a lot of things we do in our lives. I started doing Fringe shows in Boston. And you meet people, and people meet you, and if you are present people start to understand you. That natural desire to collaborate with people I think is very strong. I think as a director you often find all sorts of great reasons for casting somebody, or not casting somebody – but one of them is simply just that you want to work with that person.

DR: “Flagging” I feel like is constantly happening, and it happens in such a clear way in the college student theatre scene. There’s this big audition: “They’re not right for this role but, oh God, I wish we needed another girl – flag her!” Or in class: “He’s so fun to play with – flag him.” Does it take somewhat of a different form when you’re in a larger community?

MY: It’s a little different, but at its core it’s the same –

DR: – the same desire just to get in the room with someone.

MY: Exactly, and it’s a really good one. It’s one that we dress up and talk about in a lot of professional language but it’s a much simpler and better and purer thing. It’s: “We like people, we like the process, we want to do it with people who we like.” And I think after college you have to develop a certain confidence and realize that it isn’t that different. It seems different at first and then you find yourself at this place where you realize, “Yeah, it actually is pretty okay to send an e-mail to this person and just say, ‘I’m pulling this together and I think you’re awesome at what you do. I’ve been waiting to work with you for a while. Come on over if your schedule fits.’ ” It’s realizing that permission exists. There’s no mystery to it. At least in the Fringe, there’s no mystery to it. And now, working outside the Fringe, I’m seeing there’s no mystery to it there either.