by Kirby Lindsay, posted 5 November 2014
Native New Yorker, Doug DeVita, wrote his play, ‘The Fierce Urgency of Now’, in about six weeks, after the passing of his friend Dolores Hanan, also known as ‘Dodo.’ “The day she died,” he recently recalled, “I sat down and started writing it.”
Starting November 7th, Arouet Productions will stage, for three-weeks at The DownStage Theatre on Stone Way, DeVita’s very personal story about working with Dodo at a New York ad agency.
“One of the things I’ve heard about the script,” DeVita reported, “is that it is a very New York-centric script. My hope is that the experiences are universal. I hope that Seattle audiences take away that these people are like people they meet every day.”
“There is something recognizable,” DeVita said, for those who take this opportunity to see the world-premiere of ‘The Fierce Urgency of Now,’ “and I hope they laugh. It is a comedy.”
A Play Based In Friendship
The inspiration for ‘…Urgency Of Now’ started with grief, and loss. “I worked in advertising for over 20 years,” DeVita explained, and his career took him to the three biggest ad agencies in the world. Today, DeVita teaches advertising at the Fashion Institute of Technology, but many years ago at N.W. Ayer, where DeVita worked as an art director, he was teamed with Hanan, a senior copywriter.
The two hit it off, and stayed close, even after Dodo retired and returned to her native Chicago. As DeVita began his writing career, Hanan encouraged him. She even shopped a play, at Chicago theaters, that DeVita had written with Gary Lyons called ‘Just A Rumor’.
After her passing, when DeVita sat down to write about the start of their relationship, “I felt her with me the entire time. I never wrote anything so fast.” DeVita completed the script quickly, but he did admit that “I have revised it about 127,000 times.” The finished play contains versions of real people, although, the playwright acknowledged, “a lot of what is in the play is heavily fictionalized.” Still, the main character, Kyle, “is somewhat like me,” DeVita noted, and the inspiration is all Hanan – and the friendship the two shared.
A Career Started With Collaboration
DeVita started writing 15 years ago. He had served, for a year, as artistic director of a small, well-established theater company. Based on these experiences, John Chatterton, of the Off Off Broadway Review, asked him to write theater reviews. This introduced him to another artistic director, at the Children’s Theater, who encouraged him to adapt William Shakespeare’s ‘The Tempest’, and then ‘As You Like It,’ for young audiences.
From there, at a teacher’s workshop, he met Gary Lyons, another playwright and a performer, and the two teamed up. The two wrote the play Hanan spent time shopping around, and they wrote two more, before DeVita realized, “I was the latest in a long body count,” of Lyons’ collaborators.
After the two writers parted company, DeVita discovered he had reasons to thank Lyons. “He’s very disciplined, and I learned that from him. I write every day, at least one hour a day,” DeVita said. However, DeVita also learned that he has his own attitudes, particularly when it came to getting plays produced, that he wants to express.
Lyons wanted their plays produced in very specific ways, but DeVita finds he is more willing to let the director – and the actors – develop the work. “If there is something I don’t like, I say something,” DeVita said, but, “I let the directors and the actors find what they can. I will always be eager and ready to help. I will always be interested in being involved. That said, there will be times I will have to trust.”
Another DeVita play, ‘Checking The Basement For Leaks,’ has been produced here and in New York. DeVita had no ability to give input on a production of the work done by Driftwood Players, and directed by Dave Morrison, for a short play festival. Yet, “I was thrilled,” DeVita reported, “It was very well received. Conversely,” in New York, “I was not happy with that production.” There, he was able to attend rehearsals, and he saw the show, throughout the development process, not working. “The director let them wander,” he said about the actors, “It was really hard not to jump up and start directing.”
A Production Done With A Fan
DeVita has been able to visit Seattle during rehearsals for Arouet’s production of ‘…Urgency of Now.’ “What Roy and the cast discovered is just astounding,” he said, “I feel very well taken care of. I’m very, very pleased.”
“If someone is interested enough to produce my work,” DeVita said, “that’s a privilege – that it’s being done.” DeVita met Roy Arauz, the founder of Arouet and director of this production of ‘The Fierce Urgency of Now’ through an on-line message board for theater, BroadwayWorld.com. “He said he was a fan of my work,” DeVita said, pleased. This is now their third collaboration. “Roy is very often allowed to see early drafts of my work,” DeVita said.
To see the result of collaboration – and a close friendship – attend one of the shows – Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, and Monday, November 17th – between now and November 22nd, at the DownStage. Directed by Arauz, this production also features the acting talents of Laura Crouch, Kelly John, Evan Louis Thomas, Lisa Viertel, and Mark Waldstein.
Purchase tickets for a world-premiere performance of ‘The Fierce Urgency of Now,’ and see this personal, yet universal, play, through Brown Paper Tickets, now.
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