Sam Prince is joined again by Karen Libman who talks about her 35 year career as a theater professor, stage director, writer, and storyteller. She talks about her experience of bringing Shakespeare around the world and back. This conversation was so fun, she'll be back next week with more! For acting classes from your host; Sam Prince, check out his website: www.samber.productions and follow along on Instagram: www.instagram.com/samberproductions
Sam Prince 0:05 Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be a great actor on stage or television? Do you wish you had an acting coach to help you get to the next level? Or maybe you just have a great idea for a movie series are played but aren't quite sure where to start? Well, you are in the right place my friend. My name is Sam Prince and I am the director of a production company here in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and have been an actor for over 30 years. I've directed and written plays, and screenplays and taught many acting classes. This podcast is your place to learn how to move forward with your career in acting, theater, film, playwriting, screenwriting, and much more. There will be inspiring conversations with special guests as well. So welcome to the creativitorium podcast, and action. All right, welcome. Welcome to the creativity podcast. I'm your host, Sam Prince. And I am here with I'm so excited. Live man Karen Libman 1:34 I'm excited me here to say, thanks for having me. Sam Prince 1:38 For sure. For sure. Now, we met first at the piano lesson really? Right. Karen Libman 1:45 Did we know each other before? Maybe? I think we knew each other for each other. Yeah. Which I mean, we could. Oh, man, that could be a whole other thing about the piano lesson. Like, I gotta say, there is no business that a middle aged white woman should have been directing the piano lesson. I'm just gonna go there. And Sam Prince 2:11 you know what, though? I know what though. Yeah. I'm glad you said it. But that's you, Karen. Like, I just I was so inspired by you for doing a Black play. I mean, I was inspired. Karen Libman 2:24 Oh, it's, you know, in in, and I gotta say, I wouldn't do it. I wouldn't take the gig. Now. I just wouldn't. I think that enough has changed in those. I don't know, what, 15 years or however long it's been that. I mean, even at the time, I remember thinking. And then I also remember thinking, Man, the opportunity to direct August Wilson is never going to come again. You were you were unbelievably awesome. And that was such a that was a it was such a learning experience for me. I just remember. Well, there's well, we'll do maybe we'll talk about that another time. Sam Prince 3:11 Yeah, right. Right. Yeah. Right. Yeah. I mean, yeah, I mean, it was it was a lot of obstacles, a lot of craziness. But still, I mean, I'm just so glad that you went there. Because I mean, yes, you're right. These are times different times. But the inspiration and I saw this cute little white woman a way. And it was it was amazing. It was really amazing. Karen Libman 3:44 I mean, how can you not be inspired by August Wilson's work? I almost you know, I haven't gone out much. I've been kind of one of those COVID hermits, I don't really need to go out much right now. So maybe my contribution to the world right now is not spreading virus. But man, I gotta tell you, the Goodman Theatre in Chicago right now is doing Gem of the Ocean. Which is his I think it's the 19 101 of the trilogy. And that's one I haven't seen. I mean, I've seen him almost seen a mall. And all of the 10 the not the trilogy, the deck. I don't know what technology or whatever. Yeah, um, of the Wilson plays and it has gotten magnificent reviews and because of COVID they have tickets right now for so cheap. And I almost thought Gosh, last Sunday, I almost got in the car and just drove to Chicago. Because I was like, I should go see this and then it snowed and I was like, okay here and that's a much smarter thing to do to just not go but Sam Prince 4:59 yeah, wow. Yeah, so anyway, Karen Libman 5:01 everybody should, should go to Chicago see Gem of the Ocean if you can support amazing professional theatre by, you know, clearly one of America's greatest playwrights in the 20th century. So, Sam Prince 5:18 yeah, yeah. Black or White? Yeah, Karen Libman 5:21 no, I mean, yeah. Greatest. Yeah, there's just no doubt about it. It is. It is not. It is not a play for the faint hearted. I do know that. It's yeah, it's long. And it's, you know, and it's one of his I think it's one of his weirder plays. Do you know how piano lesson went into that, you know, goes into that kinda right. Yeah. You have that amazing monologue to man. Oh, Sam Prince 5:52 boy. Yeah, yeah, it was a great experience. That was really my first civic experience. Like, Oh, yeah. So it was it was all cool. Yeah. But anyway, enough of that. Yeah. Let's talk about you. So I'm so curious. So like, tell me start from the beginning. Like, where did you get the acting bug? And, you know, all the amazing things that you've done so far? Oh, Karen Libman 6:30 man, you know, well, um, I was really lucky. I went to an elementary school that had drama in the school, which is like, you know, most elementary schools are they, you know, it used to be that most had like music and art visual art, right. You didn't usually get theater till like high school, maybe middle school, but Sam Prince 6:55 maybe yeah. Where was to this? Karen Libman 6:58 I went to this little tiny I was in Atlanta, Georgia. I grew up in Atlanta. And, um, I went to this small parochial school, Episcopalian parochial school. And, um, it was, it was in the 70s. So it was kind of a funky time, the early 70s. You know, there was a woman there who was like, honestly, she was like the secretary, and but she had a degree in drama. And so they were like, she asked to start a drama club and after school drama club, so they let her and I was in fourth grade. And I got my first role is title in the crow in the play? Reynard. The Fox and the woman's name was Nicky Nichols and her name, I, I really believe in naming people, you know what I mean? Cuz she was, you know, in she did such an amazing job that they eventually hired her to do like classroom drama. So like, we had drama class the same way we had like English and social studies. And, yeah, and so my whole elementary school career, we did like, real plays, not like, you know. I mean, yeah, we did. We did the Christmas Pageant and stuff like this, but but Nikki, she was like a task master. Like she, we did real stuff. And that's, you know, that was what did it for me. So, for me, it was from a really young age. I really thought, yeah, I wanted to, you know, like most people, like many people started in acting, right. You know, most people started out on stage before they necessarily branch out and ended up ended up sort of having kind of a checkered high school career. I did plays in high school, but I ended up leaving before I graduated. There's a story there, but it's not worth it right now. But But I did go to college eventually. And I majored in theater and ended up getting Sam Prince 9:17 where'd you go to college? Karen Libman 9:18 Well, I started out at Indiana University, but um, I ended up transferring to Virginia Commonwealth University, because I got married in college and I my husband got a job there. And so I ended up getting a bachelor of fine arts BFA in acting from VCU and I got out got my first acting job, you know, five month run of doing no coward and I hated it. I hated it. I just it was so boring cuz you know, like a lot of people I only done school theater or summer stock. So I'd never done a run that was longer than three weeks. You know, by by the third month I was like, put my eyes out it was really problematic because Yeah. I literally had no other skills. Sam Prince 10:29 So if you live in the West Michigan area and close by, you gotta come check out our play, Frederick. It's going to take place February 11 through the 13th at the Cannes theatre and Cedar Springs. Samra Productions Presents Frederick. And it's about Frederick Douglas, who, back in the 1800s, we're going to take you back in time and tell you about his life from being born as a slave to becoming a great political figure. And the coolest part is that we have some amazing West Michigan actors and actresses are going to be portraying Abraham Lincoln, Susan B. Anthony and more. You'll be amazed. Trust me. So come check it out. February 11. Through the 13th. Tickets are on Eventbrite when you go to Eventbrite, just search Frederick and at Sandburg dot productions as well. Check it out. Yeah. Can't wait to see you. Karen Libman 11:42 I worked at a bakery. I was like, Oh, what am I gonna do? So I went back to graduate school. And I ended up getting an MFA in theater for youth in directing. And just ended up falling into working in academia, I always thought I'd work at like a professional theatre acting maybe in directing and working with young people, kind of like what you're doing now. And, um, but again, you know, life is life, throws lots of different challenges at you. And I ended up getting divorced, and I needed a job. You know, um, and there was a job at Illinois State University as a visiting professor in theater, and I got the job. And it turned out that I really liked teaching college students. I, I also have a certification to teach high school and I, I literally did that during my student teaching also found out man, that is a hard job. Kudos to high school theater teachers. Oh, my Lord. Sam Prince 12:56 And so next gen man, Karen Libman 12:59 no kin. That was not for me. But I ended up loving teaching, teaching college university. And so that's what I ended up doing. I had taught in New York, upstate New York, and then I taught in the University of Nebraska and Lincoln Go Big Red. And then I ended up here teaching at Grand Valley. And which was a great move, you know, we ended up moving from my husband would ended up going back to school, and getting a PhD in history. And he inlet, you know, we, we were pretty good. And Lincoln, we liked Lincoln, a lot, Lincoln, Nebraska. But, you know, what we ended up telling people is our kids were of an age where we needed to decide if we were going to stay somewhere for a little while, you know, oldest was getting ready to go into middle school. And we just thought, you know, my husband teaches African American history, and we just were like, do we really want to bring up our kids and you know, the whitest place in America? And we thought maybe not. So we ended so we came to Grand Rapids, and he ended up getting a job at Western Michigan. And, yeah, so I spent 22 years at Grand Valley a teaching and then of course, I directed rounds. You know, I I've directed in Grand Rapids, I've directed other theaters in other states. But I had a great run and I retired this past December. So that's, um, I got a bunch of stuff. I mean, my favorite part of the last 10 years, I gotta say, has been all the international stuff I did. I really did. decided that I wanted to explore the theater world internationally. So I, I was fortunate to get a Fulbright and do Shakespeare in South Asia. And I ended up in Yeah, India and Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. I, my, I got to travel to Armenia and Brazil and Norway and just man. So direct directing, all directing, directing or, or conferences, teaching. Sam Prince 15:35 Yeah, goodness, that is so cool. Karen Libman 15:39 Yeah. And I mean, in Grand Valley was really supportive of that in taking Shakespeare abroad. You know, like one of my favorite things at Grand Valley. And one of the reasons I came to Grand Valley was the Shakespeare Festival, which is another time we got to interact. Yeah, you email worked on the Shakespeare Festival, you acted in our Bollywood Midsummer Night's Dream? Sam Prince 16:02 Yeah. Yeah. So Karen Libman 16:06 that was, um, I think Sam Prince 16:10 pronounciation did us use this? Oh, and Karen Libman 16:16 she is a genius. Yeah. You know, that, you know, I look, it's so interesting to look back at your work and think, Oh, that was a mistake. Oh, I should have done that. You know, that was those are like, those are like great things. But I couldn't tell you that there was a there were some mistakes in that show, for sure. But, man, that was a good test. I was thinking about that. Sam Prince 16:45 That was an amazing. I was I was that was that was, I mean, I love Shakespeare, but I haven't done a whole lot. You know, so that was, I was grateful for you for cast me in that. But just to see all the talent around was like, Holy crap. Karen Libman 17:02 That was one of those times, like a lot of those people. You know, one of the cool things about Grande valley that I've always said is, is it is it's a liberal arts theater degree, you know, and, and what that means is, is that, you know, you're going to learn a little bit of everything in theater, but you're you're not going to come out like a specialist necessarily. Like we're just as proud of our students, our alums, who are teachers, and bankers and sales people who run nonprofits who are you know, as we are of people who are working in the professional theatre world, I mean, I think theater prepares you. I mean, to a degree in theater, working in theater, studying theater playing in theater. Just prepares you for so much but that cast MAN Yeah, Watson is in a TV movie right now. Sam Prince 18:00 Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Oh, Karen Libman 18:03 we got a dynasty your your daughter. I don't know if you remember her. She's like a professional model. She goes all over the world modeling. The fella Kyle, who, who played one of the young lovers, works in theater in Alaska. Sam Prince 18:23 Man, so great in shop, Karen Libman 18:25 the other young lovers, he ended up getting an MBA, he works in business. I mean, in he's a musician, it's you know, so that was cast. I gotta say, yeah, Sam Prince 18:37 yeah. Yep. And, you know, I mean, yes. That was a cool cast. But I just gotta say, Karen, like your career is so amazing. I mean, I'm just so thankful. Yes, yes. Karen Libman 18:53 It's, you know, don't say that, like, with any kind of irony, like, I have. Yeah, I've been really blessed. I've, I've worked with, I mean, the students, I've worked with the people I've worked with the things I you know, we part of the Shakespeare Festival, one of the things we started was the bard to go where, you know, we take Shakespeare out into the high schools. And I wanted us to start going to foreign countries because I have this international thing. We were going to talk about Shakespeare here. And one of the things about Shakespeare that's really interesting is that if you are going to study English, I'm sure you you are going to end up studying Shakespeare it doesn't matter what country you live in Shakespeare is as as an English writer. He's He's it's cold. He's cultural currency. You know what I mean? Yeah. So yeah, we you know, we ended up taking, I mean, I took a group of GVSU students to perform Shakespeare in China. Wow. Yeah. In Shanghai and then we had a group of Chinese University students come to Grand Valley to our Shakespeare Festival and perform Shakespeare in Chinese. Stop. Yeah. In and we've said, Wow, we we've been to Italy and we've been to South America. I got I've been to a, I highly recommend this you if you decide to do some Shakespeare with your company, there is a Shakespeare Festival in NASA, the Bahamas, which we have been to twice called Shakespeare in Paradise, and they do cool Shakespeare and again, you it was really fun to take students to the Bahamas. But Bahamas, which is not that far away from the United States. It's so important to get exposed to different different cultures. Yeah. Sam Prince 21:05 Is it the Bohemian or whatever you want to call it? Yeah, but they're doing it? Oh, Karen Libman 21:11 yeah. Yeah. Whatever. Yeah, everything. Yeah. In it's, it's because you know, it's just, you know, of course, they speak English in the Bahamas. But even in countries where they don't speak English, like India, where I spent five months. And English, they do speak English in India, but they speak 1000s of different languages. It's just, it's a really, it's a really linguistically diverse country. Um, Shakespeare's you know, it's just a, it's a, if you're going to be as an educated person, you got to know Shakespeare. Yeah. And so, I had fun having people translate Shakespeare for me into awesome knees and different kinds of languages. So Sam Prince 22:03 yeah, so cool. So cool. So, so let's talk about I know this is gonna be a toughy. But like, what are your top three of your whole career? The top three thing? Things or plays or experiences that stand out to you the most? Oh, man. Karen Libman 22:20 So now, are we limiting this to Shakespeare? We go in the hole. No, let's go the whole Oh, man. Oh, that's, you know, when people would ask me that question. While I was working, I would always say the play that I was working on, that was my favorite play, cuz you got it. You know what I mean? You're, you're, like producing and directing? Like, that's got to be your favorite play at the time, for sure. Because if it's not, you're in deep trouble, or you are, you are in really deep trouble. Yeah. You know, and there's, you know, for me, there's the place that I worked on myself, either as an actor or director. And then there's plays that I've seen, you know, that other people have done that I've been like, Oh, my stars, you know. And in terms of plays that I've seen, I'm always really interested in plays that I see that I think, I have no idea how they did that. You know, like, I'm, like, yeah, how in the world did they pull that off? I mean, so I always, you know, my, my, one of my very favorite plays ever is, is the, the, the Tony Kushner the two plays of in the Angels in America, Angels in America, Millennium Approaches, and perestroika, I got a chance to work on a Millennium Approaches in it, and I've worked with it in the classroom a lot. It's just an amazingly beautiful play. That is so quintessentially American. It talks about race, and sexuality. It's about life and death. It's about politics, it is deeply centered in a time period in that that period of Reagan 1980s Reagan America, which is when I really came of age as an adult, I feel like and, but it's but it's still universal, you know? Yeah, it's, it's just a it's a beautiful play. And and, you know, in terms of a really recent play, there is a play that I saw in 2019 in London, and it did Come to New York as well, that is the heir to that. Two Angels in America. It again, it's a two part play. It's huge. It's an epic play. It's called the inheritance. And it's by Matthew Lopez. All also, it's set in the 21st century. It just it, I can't even the scope of the play is so enormous that I like Angels in America, it, it was just, it was just beautiful. And I remember my husband and I were in London, and I said, we're gonna go see this. It's, it's gonna be like, eight hours. It's two parts, four hours each. And my husband's like, You're You're kidding me. I mean, he likes theater. But, you know, theater. I mean, both both parts of the Play Part One and Part Two, the inheritance. There are three acts, you don't even see three act plays anymore very much, you know. And I'm one of those people that I love the 90 minute play. You know, I love the play that has no intermission that you get in it out. I mean, that's Frederick, I love those plays. But even he was so deeply touched by the inheritance. So it'll be interesting to see. I mean, what happens to that play if it ends up taking off? It is a it's a tour de force for actors. It's almost all men. I think there was, there's there's literally only one role for women, but it's got like, 20 men in it. It's just to be Sam Prince 26:56 memorizing eight hours of Karen Libman 27:00 it's just it just like what it was. Yeah, it was it. I mean, you know, on stage time was like, probably 320 That that included, you know, the two intermissions? I love the Midsummer Night's Dream. That is I have to say one of my favorite plays ever and I'm not just like, favorite Shakespeare's but like, favorite plays. I have never seen that play fail. No, it No, there's just no way that play can fail it. It transcends language. You don't need English for it, you you and of course, Shakespeare is very beautiful. A lot of people are you know, I mean, the language is very beautiful. But honestly, I've never seen that play fail. And you haven't either. You can do with young people. They get it you you know, there are other issues in it that you can talk about the the idea of, of, of relationships and love and, and camaraderie and it just I've never seen it fail ay ay, ay. And I've seen it and done it several times. Um, I, one of my favorite productions that I ever saw was in Atlanta. And the, there's a place in Atlanta that does Shakespeare that's just wonderful. It's now called the Atlanta Shakespeare Theatre, but for a while it was called the Shakespeare tavern. Because they also have like, it's kind of like a Shakespeare dinner theater, if you can believe that. Sam Prince 28:47 That's pretty cool. Karen Libman 28:49 But they sell alcohol during the play. So like people come around with alcohol now. Picture, A Midsummer Night's Dream as people get drunker and drama. Okay. That's the last the last act when they're doing the pyramids and Thursday. Yeah. I've never seen that part take so long because the audience was laughing so hard by the end of the evening, like they couldn't even get out online. And the just was, it was so fun. It just can't it just can't. It just can't fail. You know? Um, yeah. Yeah. So, um, yeah, mid summer is you know, I always I always put mid summer up there and then you know what? I, I, I love um, I guess I'm gonna say, uh, um, The the the Lynn Nottage piece, um and now I'm of course I'm not intimate apparel but the other the Well of course she's got one on Broadway right now but I'm the one that said in a setting in Africa that was based on mother ridge. Sam Prince 30:26 Yeah. Karen Libman 30:27 Oh heck Oh no, I'm gonna have to look. Yeah, I, I you know, I I saw it in New York. I've seen it a couple of times. Now. I saw college production at Western actually, which was very good. I mean, it's such a hard play. It's about um Well, it's about war, but it's it's kind of about it's about female genital ruined THAT'S IT room. Yeah. Right I saw was when it was in New York off Broadway when it first came out and I didn't really know anything about it except it was a really good play. And I'm not going to wreck it for listeners if they haven't seen it. I was just gobsmacked by that play rely I was destroyed by at the end of that play. I in to me, that's you know, that's what makes a good theater experience is not being destroyed, but being moved. removed. Right. Yeah, you know, I mean, I think art the purpose of art I mean, we can argue about the purpose of art but I there's a an older art art art philosopher Her name is Susan Langar Suzanne Langer. I'm not sure which How to Pronounce but she she has lots of books on arts philosophy, but she talks about how art gives form to feeling like I can't tell you the whole lot of ruined but I can tell you how I felt at the end of that play. And that's to me that's what art is about is it can be happy feelings to like mid summer like the end of mid summer and your cheeks are hurting something is is wrong. Probably wrong with you. I don't know. I'm in and I in I think that we forget that sometimes, you know, in terms of when we talk about theater, like some the way we teach theater to sometimes like think about like give people read plays. And then we test them on the plot the character. You know, nobody leaves a play a piece of art singing the plot. You know, Guernica. Picasso's Guernica is not about a misshapen horse. Mona Lisa is not about a woman sitting staring at you, you know, I'm way more. Yeah. You know, the bluest eyes is not just the plot, it's it's what? How, how the artist. And in course, theater, to me is one of the greatest art forms because it's not just one person. It's not just the novelist or the painter, it's all of these people coming together to make something more than each one of them can make individually. Right. Yeah. And, and how that moves us. Sam Prince 33:50 Yeah. Yeah. And it seems like that's the reoccurring theme of the answer to the question I just asked you, you know, your three greatest experiences, they all moved you in some fashion or weight. Karen Libman 34:04 And the fact that we get to do it with other people, theaters, just like it's hard right now. I mean, theaters taken, probably one of the hugest hits in during the pandemic is because it's it's a collaborative art form, like you can't do it alone. And, and it's, um, it's both the joy and the the challenge sometimes doing theater is that everything. I can't remember the name of the director that said this, but some famous director. You know, one of the challenges about directing is that it's not really about like, being in control. It's actually very much an out of control issue. experience because everything is in the minds and bodies of other people. And wow, including the audience, you know, um, audience, right. So it's, um, and I mean, you know, this, like, you can direct your little heart out, and then the actor is still up there and they do something totally different. It's your like, hopefully what they do is, is again, they make it more than you could ever imagine. Right? You know? Sam Prince 35:32 Yeah, yeah. So well, so cool. Well, you know what, we're talking so long and so great. Karen Libman 35:43 I mean, you know, when people interview me, like, particularly print, print people who usually only want like a couple lines, I'm like, okay, look, I am either your best interviewer or your worst nightmare. Because if you get me talking about a project or something, I'm, I'm enthusiastic about just pretty much everything I've tried to do I try to be passionate about, um, yeah, I'll just go on and on. So I always I should have started with this, Sam. I should have said, you know, just stop me. Like just say, Okay, we're good. We got enough. Sam Prince 36:16 No, I'm not gonna do. We're gonna do two sessions. We're gonna do two sessions. So we're gonna end this one right now. All right, next week, which to you and me will be like in a couple minutes, but your audience right now. Next week. We'll talk about some Shakespeare tips. Yeah, some other cool stuff. All right. So I do soon wind this up, talk to you soon. Thank you. Hey, thank you for listening to the creativititorium podcast. Again, my name is Sam Prince. And it is my honor to be your host and thank you so much for listening. I would also be honored if you could leave a review on Apple podcasts and say some nice things about what you just heard. And definitely please listen every week. We come out every Tuesday. Also, for more information about coaching classes, workshops, and upcoming productions, please check out our website Samber dot productions, that's s a m b e r dot productions. And you can also subscribe to our newsletter. And remember all the worlds a stage!