THEATER | ARTISTIC DIRECTORS
Her Theater Made Me a Better Playwright
Circle Repertory’s Artistic Director Tanya Berezin brought me some of my best theatrical journeys
I don’t remember how I first became aware of Circle Repertory Company, but growing up in northern New Jersey, I got into New York City as much as I possibly could. In my twenties, I discovered a theater that would (cliché alert) change my life.
The first thing I did at Circle Rep was audition for a role, and I even remember the part I wanted — that of a Yugoslavian immigrant trying to reconcile her old life and her new one. The actors I auditioned with had astonishing concentration and made me feel as though we were already in the play. It was one of my favorite auditions, though I did not get a callback that day.
I did, however, leave the company thinking about how much I wanted to return. It wasn’t so much about being part of an established theater. It was about finding a theater where the kind of work they were doing matched the work I wanted to do.
As I stepped outside of 99 Seventh Avenue South, watching crowds of people avoiding other crowds as they do so well in New York, I made a pact with myself:
Some day, I will stand at the door of this theater, and be invited in to be a part of it.
I said it out loud, and then started walking to the subway. I didn’t even think about it again until I had moved away and was living in the Midwest. I joined the Playwrights’ Center and miraculously, Circle Rep’s dramaturg Lynn Thomson chose my play A Body of Water when she came out to work with the Center. She brought the play to the company and they did a workshop of it over a weekend.
I was a new mom, and still don’t know how I managed to convince my son’s dad to take care of him over the weekend, but I did. My earlier experiences with Circle Rep were similar to what I found at the workshop. Everyone around me seemed to connect deeply to the art of writing and to plays. Most of all, actors, directors, and crew were supremely dedicated to the audiences who come into dark rooms seeking illumination.
About a year later, when my (first) marriage was breaking up, I got a call on my birthday from Circle Rep’s Artistic Director, Tanya Berezin.
“I’m calling to tell you we want to produce A Body of Water in the coming season,” she said. I was at my part-time day job and wanted to jump up and down like a toddler — only I couldn’t. It wasn’t until I stood in front of the theater again on a grey January day that I remembered the pact I made with myself.
I understand now it wasn’t just the mutterings of a flaky playwright. It was because something in me knew I was writing about situations that would resonate with Circle Rep, and hopefully, with its audience.
I got to meet Tanya the day I arrived. She attended rehearsals here and there and her thoughtful comments were delivered in a honey-flavored voice, impossible to forget. Tanya had been a founding member of Circle Repertory, along with director Marshall Mason, playwright Lanford Wilson, and actor-director Rob Thirkield.
I learned only through a New York Times obituary published January 19 that Tanya passed away at the end of November. Countless playwrights, actors and directors will mourn her and share their memories. I can only add my voice to theirs by saying Tanya’s grace and magic brought me to a place I’d never imagined being able to go.
On days when my play seemed out of focus and confusing, Tanya assured me it would be all right because “the answers are in your play.” One day, as the actors rehearsed the end of the play, I saw her tearing up out of the corner of my eye, which made me work harder to find more moments that would resonate with people like her.
As the play got closer to its opening, my director Caroline Kava (who brought enormous insights to the work every day) told me the ending wasn’t working. It took hours of frustration and some desperate nights of writing, but getting the call one day that Tanya had given the changes her blessing was all I needed to perk up.
I am sharing this memory not only for Tanya, but as a thank you to all the artistic directors who toil at theater three hundred sixty-five days a year to make it the experience we need it to be. Tanya Berezin was one of the very best of them, caring deeply about the work her company did and the people who did it.
Tanya let us know that we weren’t only part of one play, we were integral to the company as a repertory. She offered readings, dramaturgy or whatever we needed to make our plays shine. She championed new work and knew what it took to get it produced. Best of all, she was unafraid of critical reviews and taking risks few others would take.
Playwrights, actors, directors and other theater artists depend on the vision of people like Tanya. We are, in a sense, contractual artists who come together to build stories that resonate with the spirit of our times. We need someone who believes in those stories to create an environment where art and artistry can thrive.
When we have something to say, we try to bring people into the theater so they can hear it. That is what artistic directors help and allow us to do. Between 1969 and 1996, it is what Tanya and her colleagues did — so much so that the company became known for being one of the most extraordinary theatres in the country. I was privileged to be a part of it and will always feel lucky that I had the chance.
I see this point in our history as a very fragile one, where theater is concerned. The pandemic damaged a large number of important theaters around the country and world; some were able to come back, while others were not. While movies/TV and streaming devices give us all sorts of stories, theater does something more, by sharing live performances where artists help us experience the lives of others and react to them.
I believe it takes unparalleled bravery to do that, to stand on a stage and allow your emotions to surface so others can live them, too. Tanya understood that because in addition to being an artistic director, she was an exceptional actor (who mentored others after she left her role at the theater company). My hope is that audiences will continue to want to see theater and do whatever they can to support it.
While the loss of Tanya Berezin is immeasurable, the quality of art she left behind reminds us that we owe a huge debt to theater creators and makers whose passion has survived and thrived beyond pandemics, crises and everything else the world has thrown at us.
Because theater makers continue to create moments and stories and dramatic or comedic works or musicals that challenge the tired tropes of an exhausted world.
We owe it to Tanya to honor plays that bring us closer to who we are and want to be. Even more, though — we owe it to ourselves.
