Our interview feature returns as I sit down with Managing Director and Company Member Jonathan Ezra Rubin to discuss his new position, the future of Flying V, and what weapons to bring to hand-to-hand combat with a Scottish tyrant. All this and more, after the jump.
Seamus: Thanks for making time for an interview in the middle of two acting gigs.
Jonathan: My pleasure!
As it turned out, I open [Jewish Theatre Workshop’s steampunk production of] Macbeth [this week] and I didn’t have anything else scheduled for today. So I went in early to help rehang some curtain so we have an actual backstage on stage left…and then this is all I’ve got until fight call.
The weekend after closing Macbeth, I actually get to put on the Scottish dialect (and kilt!) at the Maryland Renaissance Festival, where I’ll be in the Royal Court, playing Sir William Cunningham, Lord Kilmaurs. I’ll also get to fight with an awesome sword called a flamberge in the Human Chess match, and act as Richard III in a short play describing how we got from Richard to Henry VIII.
Running Saturdays, Sundays, and Labor Day Monday, from August 25th-October 21st, it’s always an awesome time!
Seamus: For the benefit of our readers, tell us how you got involved with Flying V.
Jonathan: Sure thing. Like just about everyone, my connection to Flying V came through having worked with Jason, when we sat next to each other as assistants at Woolly Mammoth in the 09-10 season.
While that was going on, I was working on a theatre company I had founded with friends from college, which then took me to the NYC/NJ area for a year, during which Jason started Flying V.
After I moved back down here, Jason approached me about being the Development Director for Flying V, as that is what I had been doing with my old company. This had me starting in September of 2011, just one month prior to the opening of Tough!
Seamus: And that’s sort of expanded into your role as Flying V’s Managing Director.
Jonathan: Exactly. In December of 2011, Jason came to me and said that he needed and wanted a partner in running Flying V, that he was already coming to me about all of the administrative things he wanted to bounce off of someone, and that he’d love if I was willing to step up to take on this new role.
And, obviously, I agreed.
Seamus: And I think we all feel better about Jason’s ability to keep his head from exploding, now that you’re on board.
Jonathan: I try to do what I can to keep him both grounded in reality, organized, and back him up when he has a totally awesome idea that needs smoothing around the edges to make it a reality.
Seamus: Now, so far, our multitude of readers haven’t been able to see your work directly reflected onstage, the way they do with many company members. Walk us through some of the more interesting duties a Managing Director has.
Jonathan: Well, I’d say one of my biggest duties currently, is that I am still fulfilling the role of Development Director, because we have not found someone new [for] that position.
So, it is still falling to me to make sure that we raise all of the money we need to put on a show, and coming up with different ways to bring that money in.
Seamus: Which is one of the more important, and more overlooked, aspects of doing theater.
Jonathan: Absolutely. I am also the oversight on all things monetary. So, any money that Flying V spends, be it on paying everyone who works with us, getting sets/props/costumes/etc built and found and organized, is something I need to know about- when it happens and what exactly it’s for.
I would say the most interesting parts of the job for me, however, are the infrastructure and company building.
The meetings that I have with Jason, usually multiple times a week be it by phone or in person, as a full multi-hour meeting or a few minutes while we’re hanging out together, are a huge part of that. There we get to go over all of the ideas that we have for the company- in terms of making it a better oiled machine, picking shows, sharing news about new donations or opportunities, etc.
We have also had a great opportunity to sit down with some of the DC area’s best and brightest theatre administrators, board members, and minds, and create or grow our relationships with them.
Seamus: I remember those months after you came on being meeting-and-discussion intensive for both you and Jason. Of all the people you sat down with and all the conversations you had, what’s the best advice you guys have heard to date?
Jonathan: I think the best advice has probably been to be true to ourselves and our aesthetic. We are, in a lot of ways a very “out there”, adventurous, and relatively geeky theatre…but that means we’re filling a niche that’s not really being otherwise filled outside of the annual Fringe Festival.
That conversation really helped us refine the mission into what it is today.
Seamus: Yeah, Flying V put out a revised mission statement last month. Talk to us about how that was refined- what was dropped from the mission and what’s been emphasized.
Jonathan: The new mission really focuses on the various elements of what makes a Flying V show. Our unique brand of inspirations, coming together through our company of theatrical professionals of all types to pull these modern mythologies into something that you’re not going to see anywhere else, but is still of an extremely high quality.
The old mission touched on some of these core elements, but they were not as fleshed out as we would like. Our original mission also listed the number of company members we had, which is a very fluid thing that had changed already a number of times by the time I came on. So, that was wording that we wanted to make equally fluid.
The other amazing piece of advice [Jason and I received], which was so obvious and yet not something we ever would have thought to say out loud: Don’t let your second year be a repetition of your first year. So many companies, especially the smaller ones, just keep repeating their first year, instead of truly growing in their second, third, etc. Make sure that you really have a second year.
Seamus: Speaking of the third year that Flying V will begin soon, can you talk about what this renewed focus on our productions will mean for Flying V’s future programming?
Jonathan: I can’t give too much away yet, as some things are still being finalized, but we are in the process of actually being able to create a season for our third year, as opposed to announcing just a show and prospects in the slate at a time. Jason and I have discussed filling multiple slots in the next year with shows that are ready or being worked and close to ready, as well as trying to do some smaller pieces that will just be a one or few night gig.
Seamus: Watch this space, readers!
Jonathan: However, I can definitely say that coming off of the great success of Me and the Devil Blues at Cap Fringe, we have a renewed sense of all of the awesome things we can do as a company, and we want to keep people coming to us saying, “That was awesome! Flying V really took it to another level with this show.”
Seamus: I felt something similar, coming back to DC after moving to LA to pursue TV writing, and being reminded how cool a single theater project can be.
Now that we’ve suitably foreshadowed the V’s future accomplishments, let’s do the Jon Rubin creative lightning round!
Jonathan: Bring it on!
Seamus: You AD’d, did fights for, and appear in the steampunk Jewish Theatre Workshop production of Macbeth that opens this week. Your facebook profile says you die four times, kill two people and are in six fights. Do you have a favorite death in the show, received or inflicted?
Jonathan: Haha. I’d say my favorite fight is probably my Young Siward vs. Macbeth battle in Act 5, where I, as Young Siward, go toe-to-toe against the Scottish tyrant in an epic duel that pits my trident vs. his cutlass and hammer.
Seamus: Tridents! DC Metro audiences need more tridents.
Jonathan: This was the first time I had ever used a trident, or anything similar, in a fight. So, it was certainly a learning experience. But very fun! And our Macbeth is really great to work opposite.
Seamus: As a theatre artist, what is your future dream project?
Jonathan: Depends what my role in it would be. As an artist, I am most drawn to acting, directing, and fight choreographing- and which wins out totally changes. At the moment, I think I’m actually most fascinated by the story one can tell through a fight, and so I’d love to get a chance to be involved in that more moving forward. I’m not sure there’s a specific show I can answer for that element.
As a director, I have a list of a few plays I’d love to tackle now (ex: Jailbait), in the future (ex: Clybourne Park), or with one example tackle again (ex: Helter Skelter). As an actor, I think one of my top shows that I’d love to do is Gruesome Playground Injuries.
Seamus: What’s the fight you’re proudest of choreographing?
Jonathan: I think it’s a toss-up between the one I did for the kids I had in my Lightsaber Intensive Workshop at Adventure Theatre this past spring (a three way fight for 6-7-year-olds with two Jedi vs. one Sith) and co-creating, on the spot, my opening melee fight against the director and fight choreographer for Macbeth.
He and I had decided that we wanted to have a fight where we could do some things that we didn’t necessarily trust others who didn’t have as much stage combat experience to do and so pitted him with the trident against me with a smallsword (a post-rapier precursor to the foil) and dagger.
And so we each grabbed our respective weapons and made it up, move by move, on the spot, in rehearsal a couple of weeks ago.
Seamus: Last question and I’ll let you go. Who’s an artist, either a company member or an outside guest, with whom you’d like to work more, and in what capacity?
Jonathan: I would love to work with Jason as a director. With me either as a fight choreographer or actor.
I would also love to act opposite (my girlfriend) Hannah Fogler again, as I think we have great chemistry on stage.
I’d also absolutely love to be directed by Jen Spieler (a former professor of mine and one of my mentors) again.
Seamus: Break many legs this week as you face off against Mackers!
Jonathan: Thank you!
