Derek Spencer
Hometown?
Southwest suburbs of Chicago.
Where are you now?
Los Angeles.
What's your current project?
Everyone Agrees it's About to Explode -- a devised, immersive, site-specific piece about a group of leftist revolutionaries. The audience is cast as new recruits in the collective, and witness the dissolution of the group firsthand. The show is devised along with a model that I've been developing with my company, Ceaseless Fun, for the last 4 years or so.
Why and how did you get into theatre?
I auditioned to act in a Shakespeare play on a whim in my 3rd year of college, having no prior theater experience. I had fun but otherwise didn't think much of it. Then, the following year, I was asked to audition for a devised production of HamletMachine. It was on that production that I fell in love with the collaborative devising process. I didn't love acting, but I never felt so artistically capable as I did when I was working in a collaborative rehearsal room. I directed a small devised workshop production right before graduating, and knew that I had to keep directing, no matter what.
What is your directing dream project?
I feel lucky to be in a position in which I am able to pursue whatever passion projects I have with my company. I often feel like my next project is always my dream project. I think the only limiting factor for us is money, so my dream project is probably something huge and spectacle-y. I've thought about a big, sandbox immersive production that adapts the Bosch painting The Garden of Earthly Delights, but makes it 1970's LA. So it's just this surreal, decadent, horrifying experience of celebrity and class-division. Maybe there are two floors, heaven, and hell, and mostly the audience is in hell, but they all get 15 minutes of fame to spend indulging the hedonism of heaven. The floors could be porous so you're always aware of what's happening on the other side. I want red carpets as bridges over pits of eternal torment, 1970’s cars as Burning Man-style monster vehicles, prosthetic-heavy demon-celebs, just truly insane shit. Maybe a pool with a swim-up bar like on cruise ships? I'd likely pull a lot of the text from the King James Bible. This probably makes me sound really tacky but I don't care, someone give me ten million dollars to make this happen.
What kind of theatre excites you?
I like:
plays where philosophy is made emotional
plays that play with space, acknowledge their surroundings and make suspension of disbelief unnecessary
plays that fit the container to the contents
plays that shock me out of passivity
plays that present something so abject or upsetting that I can't get it out of my head for days
plays where everyone thinks they know what the creators intended but all the interpretations are different
plays that show me myself, or help me understand how to be human, or make me feel more like a human
What do you want to change about theatre today?
I think theatre will only thrive as an art form if theatermakers aren't afraid to explore the medium and how it can be made relevant to young, contemporary audiences.
What is your opinion on getting a directing MFA?
I think I'd love the actual experience of being in grad school, but the cost worries me. Even "fully funded" programs still don't fully cover living expenses. It feels hard to know whether grad school will pay off professionally or if I'll graduate with similar career prospects and more debt. I've debate applying every year, but haven't yet pulled the trigger.
Who are your theatrical heroes?
Anne Bogart, Richard Schechner, Shunt, Third Rail Projects, Punchdrunk, Dimitris Papaioannou, Carolee Schneemann, Karen Finley, Artaud, Heiner Muller, Pete Brooks, anyone making free theater.
Any advice for directors just starting out?
See a lot, read a lot. Remember that you'll always be A Dumb Idiot Baby but also A Towering Egomaniac and that somehow you have to figure out when it's appropriate to be which. You don't have to accept every offer you get, sometimes offers are bad. Anyone can make theater you just need a room and 1 or more audience members and sometimes all that extra stuff gets in the way. Work with people that you would trust to raise your hypothetical children if you hypothetically die. Being an artist is an unreasonable and irresponsible decision to make under neo-liberalism unless you have a trust fund (then it's irresponsible for other reasons) and you'll have to grapple with that at some point so you might as well do it right now.
Plugs!
ceaselessfun.com
The run Everyone Agrees It's About to Explode has been cancelled due to the pandemic. We hope to remount as soon when everything is over!
Follow Ceaseless Fun on IG for updates.
derekaspencer.com
IG: @ceaseless_fun or @abstract_sentimentalism
Editor Note- updated in November 2020
