A Conversation on diversity in theatre with director Debbie Swann
Debbie Swann, a local professor, actor and director at Fort Collins theatre company OpenStage speaks with me about her journey to becoming involved with theatre. Swann speaks to why diversity matters and how her life has been effected pursuing a career in the theatrical world.
Oliver: To start off, where did you start your theatrical experience?
Swann: I don’t know if as a woman I had a unique experience. When I was in high school I loved theatre and was cast in a lot of stuff. But I was good at a lot of things too. I really enjoyed science and I liked writing. So I didn’t necessarily see myself as theatre major and like a lot of theatre majors with parents who are worried about their futures, I don’t think they were necessarily really excited to have me be a theatre major. But when I went to college I found out I wasn’t just getting cast in high school I was getting cast in leading roles in college and it started to look like a viable option for me. I was getting to graduation though and I wasn’t really sure what was going to happen next. I was with a guy that I knew I was going to end up marrying and the family and the life and everything else and then I got into graduate school and for the first time I think I realized, okay am I going to make the decision that all my friends, female friends, would make which is, go follow the guy, he’s in Kansas City you should go there too. Or am I going to pursue what I personally really want to do and professionally really want to do? So I think that was one of the first times that I was faced with a dilemma. What does my heart want what does my head want? I think women struggle with that more then men do.
I lucked out because I choose my head and I went to graduate school and my heart followed me. He moved to Texas for me… And that’s a unique thing that happens I think. Ultimately I’ve been following him ever since. But when it started it was a really hard choice to make.
And then in graduate school, there was a solid mix of men and women both as my professors as well as my advisors and even my peers in the classroom. So I never really felt that as a defining factor. And of course, you always have that one great professor who has you start reading things. And honestly, I think she got me thinking more about race than gender. And how I live in this little bubble. Growing up in Texas and then going to school in Kansas I wasn’t exposed to a lot of diversity and it wasn’t something that I thought a lot about. I only had one professor, in graduate school I know this is true and it might be true of my undergrad, I only had one professor that was a woman of color and she was brought in from a different department. To teach culturally diverse kind of geared class in the theatre department so she wasn’t even in our discipline. They brought her in for this strict person to get us to talk about culturally diverse topics.
Oliver: Do you think that coming from an acting background, do thinks it difficult for women to deal with body image especially now during the #MeToo movement… Did you ever feel the pressure to look a certain way on stage?
Swann: No, I don’t think so. I’m also a tiny little thing so I was never asked to look different. But I think a lot of that had to do with looking the way they wanted me too, which is so unfair right? Again, I never thought about it because I was never asked too. And I think that is true for the racial dynamic as well. I don’t think so.
Oliver: Do you remember any second-hand experience with someone who did face that adversity?
Swann: I did do a show and she was a dancer and an amazing dancer. This really tall, lean just the amount she could bend her body back was insane. And she was incredible whenever she did a musical, she started dabbling in musical theatre her last couple years in undergrad. And whenever she did a musical, we would laugh and she wasn’t upset about it, but it was a fact that they would ask her to wear falsies. And put these, and we called them the chicken breasts cause that’s exactly what they would look like they were this little silicon chicken breasts and they would make her bustier so that she would have a more feminine appearance. Although I don’t think that it, she was stunning and it had very little to do with character development, but she was asked to wear them so it would fill out the costume. And look like the sexy stewardess she needed the be in “Company” or the amazing dancer in “Sweet Charity,” which is about prostitutes and singing “Hey Big Spender” and like come over her guy and she is wearing falsies.
Oliver: Have you faced any difficulties directing a show?
Swann: In graduate school, I was in the directing program and we also had a playwriting program. And one of our playwrights was a veteran and had served in Iraq and had come home and written a play about his experience over there. And he needed someone to direct it for his thesis. And a lot of the other directors were working on projects that semester and I wasn’t, so they asked if I would do it. He and I worked amazingly well together to the point that he commented on how he would start saying something and I would finish his sentence. So I knew that I had his trust and he knew that from a vision standpoint we were on the same page.
His advisor did not trust me. And I walked into rehearsals to find my actors holding pre-rehearsal rehearsals with him with his advisor. The playwright had not asked him to do so but his advisor did not trust me for whatever reason although I couldn’t help but feel it was because of my gender that he did not trust that I would do an adequate job with this material. Because how would I be able to relate to war and the woo-a style of the military. And it was really difficult because then I also didn’t want to perpetuate that kind of stereotype so that when I tried to put my foot down and say ‘this isn’t fair you aren’t treating me fairly’ you feel the tears start to come and you think, ‘don’t behave that way, don’t be the woman, don’t start crying.’ And I don’t know if that’s being a woman or just being me. And you’re telling yourself don’t deny how you would react in a certain situation because you don’t want to support whatever kind of stereotype they have. That was heart-wrenching and I remember talking to the playwright and saying am I doing something wrong? Did you ask him to do this?
Oliver: Was he (the advisor) an older male?
Swann: Yes. Very much so. Older gentlemen. The playwriting professor and I had never had him as a professor. And maybe that’s why too. Perhaps he didn’t know me and so, all I know is that he didn’t really come to rehearsals and did this behind my back. I mean it was, I had no idea this was happening. What’s funny when you were pitching your thesis you picked three plays. And I picked arguably three feminist pieces although they are very different. And I ultimately incredibly happy with the one I ended up doing but I also pitched Paula Vogel’s “How I Learned to Drive” which is about being sexually abused as a child by a family member and growing into a woman and how to deal with those issues. It’s a great play and one of my professors, and she was female, she’s the one who knocked it down. She said it was too sympathetic to the pedophile. And so she didn’t want to perpetuate that. Which to me, I am someone that was sexually abused as a child, so to me, I didn’t feel that way at all. As a child, I just remember thinking this is an authority figure so what am I supposed to do.
Oliver: I’m so sorry.
Swann: Well I’m not alone. What is it, a third of all women if not more. So I mean I just remember thinking the character of Little Bit, feeling like I can’t say anything if everyone seems to know about it or if he’s okay with it then it must be okay because he is in a position of power. So I don’t know it was interesting how, and that was the only excuse she gave and we moved onto a different play but it’s kind of now on my bucket list. Because now that I kind of have the words to defend why I think her view is inaccurate, I would love the opportunity to show that.
Oliver: So you are directing “Steel Magnolias?”
Swann: Yes, which was written by a man which I could hardly believe… Which I suppose maybe is unfair. I mean if I feel like a woman could write a man just as well as a man could then I shouldn’t feel the opposite. Unfortunately, I just see so many male playwrights write women as not complex creatures which we are as men are as well.
Oliver: Do you think that in terms of female playwrights and roles for females do you think there is a wide variety or do you think the world could stand to open up the doors a little bit more?
Swann: Oh they could absolutely open that door wider. I mean throw it open. I talk about this in my class, color-blind casting is more prevalent then it has ever been before. People love to point to shows like “Hamilton” as an example of how colorblind casting can work. But it is really important to point out that Lin Manuel Miranda wrote “Hamilton” with the idea of it being colorblind. Like that was his intent. So it is crafted in such a way that it is transcendent. Shakespeare did not, Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesmen” did not and so I think that’s important to keep telling other people’s point of views in other stories. I think just casting actors of different gender’s of ethnicities of whatever in roles and calling that diversity doesn’t actually allow them to tell their unique story on a global stage. Those stories are important.
Swann will be directing “Steel Magnolias” opening January 19th.