Are Twain’s observations on race in America as relevant now as they were a hundred years ago?

The popularity of this novel continues to be followed by controversy. According to the Associated Press, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is the fourth most banned book in the United States. Book-It doesn’t shy away from banned books. Our Danger: Books! series tours a collection of the ever-growing number of banned or challenged books to middle and high schools each year.

Between 2003–2005, Book-It company artist Laura Ferri adapted and directed scenes from the novel that toured to more than 60 schools in the Puget Sound region. The company remembers that the reactions to Twain’s work were often heated. Now, ten years later, the novel is no less controversial. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: Uncensored, as conceived by Jane Jones and Judd Parkin, gives us all a new opportunity to vocally and honestly respond.

Last fall, Book-It partnered with Franklin High School in helping David Ehrich’s junior Language Arts class navigate their way through this historic novel. Jane Jones audited the class as part of her prep for conceiving her vision of the play and Book-It Director of Education Gail Sehlhorst teamed up with poet and teaching artist Daemond Arrindell to offer students a Book-It Style approach to the curriculum.

With support from Humanities Washington, and a cadre of community arts and humanities partners, Book-It offers Twain Talks—a series of community conversations around the topic of Twain, his novel, and racism. We want to take a candid look at where our culture is today compared with Twain’s time. To lead our discussions, Book-It has invited notable scholars David Bradley (University of Oregon); Jocelyn Chadwick (Harvard University); and Shelley Fisher Fishkin (Stanford University)—all three of whom are featured in Ken Burns’ documentary on Mark Twain—Nancy Rawles, author of My Jim, and Sharon Williams, managing director of CD Forum.

Gail and I reached out to some of Seattle’s local leaders to serve as our advisors on the project. These individual meetings were electric exchanges of ideas and questions. Our humble thanks to Ross Baker, Kathy Hsieh, Leilani Lewis, Valerie Curtis Newton, and Daveda Russell. We are grateful to our partners: CD Forum, Northwest African American Museum, Franklin High School, and Town Hall. Thank you all for joining us in this community endeavor.

Teaching artist Daemond Arrindell at Book-It’s first Twain Talk, held at Town Hall; photo by Josh Aaseng.

Adapter Judd Parkin, educator David Ehrich, Director Jane Jones, and actors Christopher Morson and Geoffery Simmons; photo by Josh Aaseng.

Book-It’s Twain Talks series runs until May 5. Click here for the full schedule of events.

by Justina Brown , Book-It TeenTix Writing Project Contributor

Nearly everyone has a favorite book or story. It’s that one tale in which you read the book a hundred times, you see all the movies, you see the play or musical multiple times, and you know everything about that world because you long to be there. It’s one thing to be a fanatic but it’s quite another to be able to say that you got to bring your favorite book to the stage in a way unlike any other. That’s precisely what Judd Parkin is going to be able to do in April when Adventures of Huckleberry Finn graces Book-It Repertory Theatre’s stage.

If you’ve seen other versions of Huck Finn then you may be in for a surprise when you discover that this adaptation won’t be the “cheery, nostalgic, sun-lit boy’s-own-adventure tale,” as Parkin told me. Parkin and childhood friend Jane Jones adapted this show together, both feeling the same way. Parkin informed me that Huck Finn is a “famously funny book, and we [Jones and Parkin] don’t want to lose any of the story’s humor, but we also want to highlight the darker aspects of the novel, which are often shunted to the side.” It is especially honorable to stay true to this in a time where people have learned to look past the worst and embrace the funny, light hearted side of things. When it comes down to it, though, it’s often the hard and difficult parts that people grow from.

We can always learn new things from old classic novels but it’s when a book is 128 years old and still relevant that people begin to search deeper in an effort to change the way they live. Quite honestly “Twain doesn’t present a cozy view of humanity,” Parkin says and it’s true. Sugar coating the world and fitting it into a pleasant little packaged box is a pointless task that will never be accomplished. Parkin commented that, “if we’re [Jones and Parkin] doing our jobs right, we’ll make people laugh and cry, and perhaps even reflect a bit as to how little we’ve changed as a people since Twain’s time.” I suppose it started in the beginning of time, people trying to ignore the hard truths that lie beneath the rainbow fields. That’s holding everyone back, though. Sure humanity is advancing in the realm of science and fancy new gadgets, but when people look back at us 128 years from now, do you think they’re going to be just as lost as us concerning the good of all people?

Huck Finn isn’t just a story for people in the U.S. though. Parkin shared a story about a bookseller from Lithuania who thought Huck Finn was the greatest novel ever written, despite the fact he’d never traveled to the United States. In Parkin’s own words, “it’s a universal story that cuts across all boundaries of age, race, class, and nationality.” Few messages are as powerful as this one seems to be, even people from other countries, other continents, are noticing this story as one to remember.

Though Book-It’s audience still has months [at interview time] until the premiere of Huck Finn in April, Parkin is already hoping “that they [the audience] will be entertained on every level—amused, as they undoubtedly will expect to be, but also moved, horrified, and outraged.” It sounds like getting a little emotional is exactly what people need to fully connect to this story and its message.

Parkin commented that nothing would please him more than returning to Book-It in the future. He says he has many stories he would love to bring to the stage because as Parkin said himself, “So many books, so little time”. Even though Parkin has only briefly interacted with the staff at Book-It he does mention that he’s, “enjoyed getting to know everyone’s dogs. I’m a dog guy, and I have never been in an office where there were more friendly canines running around than at Book-It…Dogs are receptive to my jokes, even if they don’t entirely understand them, and this makes me feel at home.”

“My day job is as a producer and screenwriter of films, and though I love most aspects of my work, there are a lot of limitations, material-wise, as to what you can do. Doing “Huck” enables me to work on material I’d never in a million years be able to make into today’s film market—I doubt even Steven Spielberg could get financing for a film version of “Huck”. I also began my career in the theatre—it’s where Jane and I first met—so this is, in a sense, a homecoming for me. I get to use a whole different set of muscles in the theatre than I do in film, and it’s really invigorating,” Parkin confides. To know someone that has such passion for Huck Finn, there’s clearly no better person bring it to the stage “uncensored”. I know everyone can be assured that it will be unlike anything else in the most amazing way possible.

Judd Parkin has previously been an actor and director at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival while simultaneously directing stage productions across the country. He grew up in the Midwest and currently resides in Los Angeles where he’s been a movie and miniseries executive at NBC and ABC. For Judd, the last 16 years have been filled with producing and writing television films. In 2010 he published The Carpenter’s Miracle which will take to the screen and be released as a film in Spring 2013.

The curtain will rise on Adventures of Huckleberry Finn starting April 16th and will run through May 12, 2013. Tickets are on sale now for all performances.

Rachel Lam, Book-It TeenTix Writing Project Contributor, interviewed actor Emily Grogan back in September, as she was preparing to begin the rehearsal process for Anna.

What started you in acting?
I started acting when I was seven years old. My family had just moved to Arizona and I had no friends yet, as it was during the summer. My mother took me to see The Sound of Music at a local community theater company. There were lots of kids in the cast and I remember thinking, “That’s what I want to do.” I started taking classes with the group and took them twice a week for seven years. I eventually went to Cornish where I really learned the craft of acting.

What about the play, Anna Karenina, interests/interested you?
Anna Karenina is interesting to me for many reasons—as a great work of fiction, as a glimpse into Russia and Russian society at that time, as a real look at the plight of women in that society. And also as a great human story—how we struggle to fit in and play by the rules versus our own passions, interests, and desires.

Vronsky (Scott Ward Abernethy) and Anna (Emily Grogan); photo by Alan Alabastro.

You will be playing the title role in the play, correct? Tell me about her.
Anna is a woman born into high society. She has all of the expectations of women at that time—to be obedient, to marry well, to raise children and to represent their husbands well. She has a soul (like we all have) that is tugging at her and causing her to feel pulled to a deeper life filled with real love, poetry, and truth. Her husband is kind but he doesn’t see her for who she is. She struggles with depression and anger at the life she is obliged to lead. She has an eight year old son whom she adores—he’s her real passion. But, she has no control over how her son is raised, how much time she can spend with him and indeed even if she can tell him a story not from the Bible. She is described in the book as “complex and full of poetry” so a dull, contained life is actually painful to her. But, she wants to be “good”—she despairs that she has these feelings and desperately wishes that she could be happy in the life she is expected to live.

Are you excited to play Anna Karenina? Why?
I’m very excited to play Anna because she is in such a state of internal struggle and I feel such complete compassion for what she is going through. As an actress to get to play all of those big, bold colors—all of the conflict and desire and joy and pain—is very satisfying and challenging, which is very exciting for me to take on.

You’ve acted in many plays before (Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, The Cider House Rules, and Sense and Sensibility, to name a few) how do you think Anna Karenina will measure up to them?
Every play has its own world and its own challenges, some I like more than others. I’m hugely excited to get to explore Russia, and this huge, beautiful story. I like period plays especially—anything that sends me back in time, I love. Playing Anna will be a big physical challenge as I will be onstage almost the whole time. So, I think this play will go down as one of my absolute favorites—I think I can say that even before we have begun.

Will any of your previous roles (Juliet in Romeo and Juliet, Roxanne in Cyrano de Bergerac, Jane in Sense and Sensibility, and any others I haven’t named) assist in playing Anna Karenina? Is there one character that can relate better with Anna than any other, or you?
Probably every role I’ve played will serve me in some way in playing Anna. Candy in Cider House leaps to mind because of the love triangle in that story. The challenge with Candy was to accurately track her emotional decision making process in a way that the audience could understand her choices even if they wished she hadn’t made them. That was a big challenge—some people still judged Candy and I had to accept that and keep playing her with all of the compassion I felt for her. I think Anna may challenge the audience in the same way; she chooses passion and truth over her duty to her husband. She leaves him for Count Vronsky and, hardest of all to accept, she leaves her eight year old son! It destroys her, and I believe that its people’s judgment that kills her. So getting the audience to identify with her and to feel for her is the great challenge of the part.

Emily Grogan rehearses a scene from Anna Karenina; photo by Shannon Erickson.

What challenges in Anna’s life are similar to ones you’ve had to overcome?
I identify with Anna’s need to live truthfully. I identify with her intense love for her child (I have a nine year old son and a five year old son). I understand her need to express herself and some of the guilt that comes with needing to be fulfilled as a human being and that coming in conflict with duty to family.

Are there similarities between your two personalities?
I think Anna struggles with guilt for being the passionate person that she is. I have always been passionate about acting and I sometimes put it above other things and I struggle with that guilt. I identify with Anna’s feeling of duty being in conflict with her own desires (but nowhere near on the level that she does!)

What are the differences between Anna and you?
Well, thankfully, I don’t live in the times she lived in. She has nothing, everything is owned by her husband, and she is treated like a child. She has no freedom to pursue a career or even read the books she would like to read. I have choices, lots and lots of choices!

Are there any challenges you perceive could occur as you begin to study the role and novel?
As I said before, I think the biggest challenge is laying out for the audiences the tragic conflict that lies in Anna’s heart, her deep, deep pain at losing her son, and what a victim she is to the times she lives in and her gender.

Is there anything else you wish to say about yourself, your character, or Anna Karenina?
These were great questions—I feel like answering them was an important part of my process of researching and rehearsing the role—thank you!

Emily has acted in more than 10 shows with Book-It Repertory Theatre. She is a graduate of Cornish College of the Arts. Up next, she will play the title role in Anna Karenina, opening at Book-It February 5th.

Click here for tickets & more information.

by Justina Goldbeck, Book-It TeenTix Writing Project Contributor

How did Book-It Repertory Theatre begin?
There was a bunch of actors looking for alternative ways to be onstage. The theatre industry was tough and didn’t give us much freedom. Book-It was formed so we could branch out as artists. We then latched onto literature as theatre.

Mary Machala directs Emily Grogan (Anna) during a rehearsal; photo by Shannon Erickson.

What is literature as theatre?
We put books onstage… make them theatre. In doing this, we retain some of the language of the book, some of the descriptive narrative, all set in narrative form.

What is the process of putting books on stage?
When I’m adapting, I read through the book. Books are longer than plays, so the editing process is very important. I read through the book several times to become familiar with it. I have to know the story well so that what we create is as authentic as possible. The story comes together the more I work with it. I enjoy adapting, but with Anna Karenina I am only directing.

What is your favorite part of directing?
I love rehearsal, exploring different aspects of the various scenes, that is my favorite part. Rehearsal is digging into the bones of the script, to see what I can find. It’s very loose; nothing is set in stone so I can adjust scenes multiple times. I like to play with my options; sometimes my first choice is the best, sometimes a scene needs more adjusting.

How do you prepare to direct a play?
I get really familiar with the script. I start looking at the images, letting them play in my mind. I begin this process before I start directing. I want to get a good feel of the story, and see how all the pieces fit together.

What do you enjoy most about being in the director’s seat?
I like the freedom of everything. I like to really collaborate with the actors. Directing is a partnership between the director and the actor, to best showcase the actor’s talents.

What do you see when you think about directing Anna Karenina?
The entire story is a huge dance. I’m seeing a lot of movement and dancing. The storyline is complex and the different parts all move and work together. From the movement of the peasants in the field to the different relationship twists. I definitely see movement and hear music.

What are you most excited for in directing Anna Karenina?
Anna Karenina is set on stage in the round. I’m really excited to see how it works. When you do theatre in the round, you have more issues, you have to make sure every angle looks good. It’s a challenge but it’s a lot of fun.

Mary Machala is a director and one of the founding company members of Book-It Repertory Theatre. She has been directing plays for about 35 years, her most recent, Anna Karenina, opens at Book-It February 5th.

Click here for tickets & more information.

by Olivia Menzer, Book-It TeenTix Writing Project Contributor

So you’re currently working on Anna Karenina for Book-It Repertory Theatre?
Yes, Anna Karenina. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen the book, but it’s very thick, and Tolstoy…goes on for a while. I think he wrote it before War & Peace and they are both just massive… And the Russians! (laughter)

Count Vronsky (Scott Ward Abernethy) and Anna (Emily Grogan); photo by Alan Alabastro.

The Russians?
Have a lot going on. And Anna Karenina is really about one woman’s struggle to break the bondage of a very parochial Russian society. But it’s also larger than that. It’s also a novel of Russia trying to find its own identity, but when you boil it down, it’s just a story about people trying to get by and figure it out.

Anna Karenina was commissioned by Chris Coleman, artistic director at Portland Center Stage, and it was about a two-year process to wrangle it into some sort of stage-worthy shape…The adaptation went through a pretty extensive workshop down in Portland and premiered in April this year (2012). And now Book-It is doing it.

With Anna Karenina and other adapting you’ve done, what is your process, and what is your long-term role in the production?
It really varies with the project. Book-It is pretty unique, using the narrative and incorporating it into the story-telling. With Anna Karenina, opposed to other adaptations I’ve done, there is a lot less verbatim dialogue incorporated into the play.

Usually, with all the Book-It productions, like Snow Falling On Cedars, and all adaptation productions, they really want a meticulous attachment to the book. In other adaptations, stuff is lifted verbatim from the book and given out to the actors. It’s very specific as to what will make a “Book-It” show. I was much less restrained with Anna Karenina. In editing it became more of a play based on a novel. So there are probably very few of Tolstoy’s particular phrasings in adapting a book that huge.

The timeline must be massive.
Exactly. So being able to depart from that was very helpful. It enabled me to use a theatrical shorthand. I still used narrative, but I think it probably worked better than trying to take all that material and funnel it down to something. Creative liberties were necessary.

So in this production, would you say that we could see a representation of your own interpretation and/or a reflection of you in the work?
I think so. And that’s the interesting thing. Two people can read that book and come out with totally different ideas of what he meant. So yes, it’s definitely—not in an egotistical way—my take on it. I actually wrote scenes that aren’t in the book, to help the audience and streamline the character arcs so it would NOT take six or eight hours to get through the play.

Do you direct? Do you prefer acting, writing, adapting to the others?
I do direct, act, and adapt. I think artists in Seattle are in a unique situation. It’s a talent pool that requires you to be ambidextrous. Opportunities will come up where you may not think of yourself as director or adapter, but “Hey, there’s an opportunity!” I was primarily an actor, and that’s really all I did, but working with Book-It has been great, because they nurture their people and artists, and have confidence and give you the confidence to do things that may not be your normal. I think the best way to spend my last years of my career may be writing for the theater, and give, hopefully, some material to the theatrical canon. I’d like to see if I could not only adapt, but also write plays as well.

Clark Sandford, Wesley Rice, and Kevin McKeon in Book-It’s production of PLAINSONG.

So do you think acting is always your first love? Or is writing and/or adapting starting to edge it out a little bit?
There is such a thrill to acting. Like this role I’m in right now [Superior Donuts], at The Seattle Public (Theater), it is the role of a lifetime…I would pay people to do this role. It really is terrific, from Tracy Letz’s play from Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago.

Do you find it hard it get into productions that you don’t especially personally resonate with?
Absolutely. My dance with theater has involved me getting my Master of Fine Arts degree in acting at a relatively young age, and heading out into the theatrical world. And I quickly became kind of disillusioned, because I found myself working in environments where I wasn’t confident that the people in charge were steering me in the right direction… I quit—got into the real world. I became an advertising designer, and this was in Los Angeles. I came up here in the early/mid-’90s, met my wife Jane, who is involved with Book-It. They were really just ramping up back then, so I got involved with the theater by proxy.

In this second phase of my career, I have work to do that isn’t involved with the theater. I don’t want to be dependent on the theater to pay the bills, because that’s where I get in real spiritual and financial trouble. Having it as an avocation, rather than vocation, is a much better way to do it.

What is it like to work here, in Seattle?
It’s a privilege to work here in Seattle. First, the acting community are just wonderful people, those that I’ve met. And I feel like the community supports itself. We all know there is a finite number of jobs to go around, but there is a real good nature and spirit. The dedication seems to be towards the work, instead of a person’s singular career.

So you’re all working together to bring things of substance to present?
Exactly. There is a great willingness to get out and see each other’s projects and there is such a great array of work here.

Is there anything people should know about Anna Karenina before seeing it?
I don’t think people need to have prior knowledge. Hopefully some of the milieu of czarist Russia will come across in the adaptation, and that good solid Book-It production can pull that out so the audience can get a feel not just for the characters, the mores Anna has to deal with, but also the historical context. So short answer: No.

When you’re adapting, do you ever want to just jump in AND play all the roles, acting, directing?
Sometimes. I won’t say which, but there is one part in this script I would love to be able to play.

Finally, if you could do any production, what would it be?
There is one in particular. Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes. It’s a great novel of his about a malevolent carnival and two adolescent boys who come across it, and it changes their lives in unique ways, and it’s a great story. The problem is, you can’t adapt any of Bradbury’s work. He wanted control, and his estate isn’t budging on it.

Act, direct, or adapt it?
I would want to adapt that.

How do you feel about working on Anna Karenina, satisfaction-wise, compared with other work you’ve done?
This one is ultimate satisfaction for me. As I watch the characters come to life—now for the second time—that is enough of a thrill for me. I think we have a wonderful cast; I am so excited for these terrific actors. This one has just been a thrilling experience.

Kevin McKeon has adapted several novels for Book-It, and his work has been produced all over the country at theatres including Portland Center Stage, The Hartford Stage, Centerstage in Baltimore, and Theatreworks in California.

Kevin’s adaptation of Anna Karenina opens at Book-It February 5th. Click here for tickets & more information.