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[0:00] Jeryl Brunner: From Shakespeare to sports, from Fossey to Alvin Ailey, from Santham to Burelis, from McNally to Faye. It happened to the greats, it still happens every day. When lightning strikes is the moment you know. When lightning strikes, where your mentor goes, you can stand in tell your rega. Do whatever you like. You'll never forget the moments when lightning strikes.

[0:26] Jeryl Brunner: Hi, this is Jeryl Brunner, and you're listening to When Lightning Strikes, where we talk about the tingly mic drop moments that led you to becoming an artist. Two-time Obie Award-winning director and choreographer, Lee Sunday Evans is the artistic director of Waterwell. She recently directed M.M. Haley's play, The Poisoner, currently playing at La MaMa. Some of Lee's other credits include Oratorio for Living Things, Dance Nation, The Courtroom, Sunday, In the Green, Miller, Mississippi, Home, and Porto. Lee is also directing the Broadway-bound musical adaptation of A Wrinkle in Time. Welcome.

[1:20] Lee Sunday Evans: Thanks so much for coming on.

[1:25] Jeryl Brunner: Yeah, thanks so much for having me. So can you bring me to The Poisoner when it came into your life when you heard about the project and the possibility of doing it?

[1:38] Lee Sunday Evans: I met Mora last summer. And she brought the project to me, and I was really intrigued. She had a niece who was living in Flint during the time of the water crisis. And so she had a really personal connection to the story. She grew up in Michigan. And I thought that her, you know, interest in the kind of interaction between the technical science of what happened during the Flint Water Crisis, the interaction between that and the political kind of focus on, you know, Flint being in a pretty economically depressed kind of position as a city that had really declined after the era of the big car companies had really left Flint largely. I thought that her interest in, you know, the kind of power analysis behind what happened, how the Flint Water Crisis happened was a really interesting and important way to tell that story. And there were just tons of things she was saying about how it happened, why it happened that I didn't know. And so it was a really amazing opportunity to learn more about the Flint Water Crisis.

[2:50] Jeryl Brunner: So for people who might not know, The Poisoner is loosely based on what happened in Flint, Michigan. How would you describe the play?

[3:00] Lee Sunday Evans: It's a thriller, it's about a journalist who goes back to his hometown and yeah, it's telling the story of a journalist who has left the kind of allegorical place where the play is set, Max City, many years ago and has never been back, has been kind of estranged from the place, estranged from his life that he lived there. And he goes back to report on a different story. And while he's there, he kind of follows some hunches and ends up breaking the story about the fact that there's lead poisoning in the water and that there was a manipulation of some data from the state environmental agency that was kind of covering up the fact that there's lead in the water. So it's really an incredible kind of detective story through the eyes of an investigative journalist.

[3:58] Lee Sunday Evans: Yeah, and I know Mora, or M.M., did a television, and she's also a documentary filmmaker. So that's kind of how she's coming out, you know, that she's investigated this from all different angles and looked at what happened and talked to people and the impact.

[4:22] Lee Sunday Evans: Yeah, Mora did a series of interviews with a real-life reporter who had done a lot of coverage during the time of the Flint Water Crisis. And a lot of different journalists broke different stories at critical moments of how that all played out, and he was one of them. Really impressive body of work, really incredible perspective from having watched it all play out on the ground. And Mora did several hours of interviews with him that I think largely informed the basis of what she wanted to write, which is really, really cool. She also has a science background. She has a background in biotech, and so she brings a certain really technical analytical understanding of the science that was really inspiring and really interesting to work with.

[5:05] Jeryl Brunner: I read this interview with you back in 2016, in The Interval, and you talked about how you like to go about working and that sense of mystery, and if I may, you said something that I really love, that there's something about the lot understanding in the early stages of a play that I think is really important. It leads me to create productions that I don't necessarily imagine when I first read the play. Do you still feel that's true in your process and how you go about directing?

[5:43] Lee Sunday Evans: Yeah, it's um I think the thing I've learned that's most interesting is, you know, it's not really interesting to kind of become and think of yourself as like an expert on the play. It's actually always more interesting to kind of be asking yourself, what don't I yet understand? What can I understand more? What else is there for me to see or imagine is possible with this story that I don't yet see? And in that way, I always kind of think of myself as, you know, the audience only gets to see the play once. So I'm trying to in some way kind of operate on two levels. One where I do know the play really intimately inside and out, and I'm also trying to maintain some muscle where I can step back and imagine if I was experiencing this for the first time, what would I, what would I be experiencing on first pass?

What would I understand? And so that place of that muscle of trying to kind of be able to see from that place of not knowing, I think is a way to inform, you know, how you make choices based on what you're ultimately trying to create is the most nourishing, layered, complicated, nuanced experience for someone who's seeing the play for the very first time and maybe seeing it only once.

[6:54] Jeryl Brunner: Because I think about The Poisoner, and there's so many characters that cast is agile. So you've different people play lots of different characters, and it's different places. So in terms of taking the piece from the page to the stage, what was important there? And what did you want to bring out? And what was the joy of that as well?

[7:22] Lee Sunday Evans: Yeah, I think we're really learning how to use the structural framework that we set up when we started developing this version of the script. So in this version of the script, it's structured where the detective, the investigative journalist, you know, he's describing what happened and how he reported the story from maybe a year or two afterwards. Kind of stuck with him. It's eating in him. And he's telling the audience how this works. So it gives you this cool opportunity for him to narrate some of the things that happened and then drop you into something he wants to show you essentially, a scene, a dialogue, a moment between where he said, you know, some critical moment his reporting happened and drop you in in a way that's almost kind of filmic.

It allows you to do a kind of jump cut into the middle of the scene because he can set it up, and then you don't necessarily have to establish some of the same kind of, you know, relational dynamics or even some of the basic things about story because he's able to give you access to that as you're jumping into the scene.

[8:28] Lee Sunday Evans: So I think a lot of what we learned in putting it on its feet was how to make a ton of edits, even from the rehearsal room run-through that you saw that the project has had a huge number of edits, and I think that has helped that's been a product of us really understanding how the structural convention works.

[8:46] Jeryl Brunner: What do you hope people come away with after seeing the play? I know everybody has a different impact takeaway, but what's your hope?

[8:59] Lee Sunday Evans: I think it's ultimately a play and a story about a breach of trust between a city, a group of communities who all live in the same city, and their elected officials, their government, the idea that the government is gonna kind of abide by a certain social contract, that the government is there to protect people. The government is there to look out for your best interests. The government is there to provide some of these basic aspects of health, clean water, utilities, electricity. And I think that's a really deep crisis in the United States right now is our relationship to government. And, you know, as someone who I've been a lifelong Democrat, and I really do believe in government. I believe in government as an important structure.

I do think we kind of on the left have to really look soberly. We have to have a stronger analysis of when government doesn't work in order to understand why people have like a this deep anti-government resentment that's been able to be manipulated and distorted in a way that's extraordinarily damaging in the kind of, you know, both very local political kind of scenarios, but also at the national level. So I really hope that it gives us all more of an understanding to look at some aspects of how government works so that as we're participating as citizens, we have a slightly stronger analysis of what's going on.

[10:53] Lee Sunday Evans: Cause I think about, I mean, something so basic that I know I take for granted and I'm trying to last yell at the that when I turn on my faucet, there's going to be clean water that is drinkable. And then to not be able to trust that is so terrifying to me. It makes you think, okay, it's all crumbling down. It's almost like I think maybe this is an odd analogy. Almost like the earthquake that we had in New York, you know, what was it a week ago, where you think, wait, the ground is crumbling beneath me. You know, even if it was for, you know, less than a minute, there's something, you know, you think something I depended on that I took for granted, I can't depend on my clean water. In this case with Flint, you think, oh my goodness, but that could have been prevented there's somebody or elements that are failing us.

[11:51] Lee Sunday Evans: Yeah, the depth of the trust that is broken when your government is pumping poison water through the water system is hard to actually fully capture how deep of a wound that is. And I think it's really interesting to look at that almost like from a horror lens in terms of story, you know, to say the water coming out of your tap looks terrible, smells terrible, and is poisonous in a devastating way.

[12:27] Lee Sunday Evans: And something that's interesting about the story is that one of the reasons that lead is so dangerous in water is because it actually doesn't have any smell and doesn't have any taste. So you can only detect it through a really scientific sampling. But the way that lead usually gets into the water usually involves some process of corrosion, which does create the discoloration and the really pungent kind of off-putting smell that's in the water. So it's, in some ways, this strange silver lining that in Flint the water was so repulsive in terms of what it looked like because it escalated what could have been even more devastating if the lead had been in the water at the extremely high levels that it was for longer without those really kind of alarming aspects of the color and the smell.

[13:28] Jeryl Brunner: Oh, so that was really, I didn't really, that really helped them determine the dangers and the poisons.

[13:39] Lee Sunday Evans: That's really terrifying. Well, um, and what do you love about working at La MaMa?

[13:48] Lee Sunday Evans: La MaMa is such a, yeah, La MaMa's such a special place. I've worked there a few times over, you know, the 15 years that I've been making theater in New York, and it's really hallowed ground, a really beautifully kind of sacred place where I feel like I'm part of, you know, kind of generational cycle of people who've been making work in New York City for many, many decades from many different kind of aesthetic and artistic legacies. And so it's a really special place. And that theater downstairs where we're doing The Poisoner, I think it's just a really beautiful space. Very intimate, really evocative and interesting to use the space, and it was the perfect kind of industrial environment for us to do this play.

[14:43] Jeryl Brunner: Well, I love how you take risks, that you make plays that you direct that aren't always so linear, that don't give all the answers, always make me think, are always intriguing. So I'd love to know your lightning strikes moment when you knew you had to be an artist, that this was your path or moments.

[15:12] Lee Sunday Evans: Yeah, I, you know, in a way I was, I was always involved in music. I played the piano. I was a really serious choir student for many, many years. And so I was always in the arts. I think when I was in high school, there was a really remarkable parent who ran the drama club for kids after school. And I think he, I don't know if I would have even known what a director was, except for this relationship with him and the way that he ran that kind of after school group. And, you know, we did Arcadia and Equus and Twelfth Night and Christopher Durang plays, and we did wild stuff as teenage students. And he was very larger than life. I almost look back and think that in a wonderful way he kind of played up his diva director role a little bit for our benefit.

But you know, we were all just so serious and really felt taken seriously by him. And I think in a certain way that chapter of my life made me, you know, feel like that directing was the place where I could take all my passion for music and for movement and story and the kind of question of how theater is part of, you know, a bigger idea of the commons in terms of how we gather together and have spaces to reckon with these things that are affecting our lives personally, but also in terms of a larger kind of civic engagement. So directing, I think, started to crystallize as the thing that I was really passionate about in that period.

[17:05] Jeryl Brunner: And where was this? Where did you grow up?

[17:09] Lee Sunday Evans: I grew up in Denver, but when I was 15, I moved to Long Island with my family. And so there was a much stronger theater and arts culture. And I was in high school in Long Island when I was working with that drama club.

[17:26] Jeryl Brunner: I read the wonderful passage about a play that really or musical that really rocked your world. And you talked about a production of Oedipus that Robert Woodruff directed at ART when you were a student in Boston. And you say I was a house manager at the theater during college. So I'd stand in the back to let in late seating, and I'd watch the show probably a dozen times. It was education. And that at the very end, Oedipus is blind and leading his two daughters out of the city. It was devastating. Something happened. He collapsed, Aliz Lees, and one of the daughters, El Tiggali yelled from the bottom of her heart and guts with big draw-out vowels patter, and a huge curtain fell, and the lights were out. It still makes my heart pound to remember it. Do you still see that as kind of a pivotal moment?

[18:24] Lee Sunday Evans: Yeah, I, I remember that production very vividly. It was extraordinary and deeply moving and deeply bold, and I think I was seeing Robert Woodruff's work as a director interpreting texts in a way that I hadn't really been exposed to before. So I was seeing him create productions that were then interacting with the context and the meaning of plays in a way that was so different than my experience of essentially kind of thinking more of taking a script and, you know, putting it on stage. But you know, he was such, he is such a visionary director, and he was such a visionary curator. So I was seeing his productions, a lot of productions from Le Jeune Lune. And there was a Russian company that was coming over and doing a series of Chekhov plays during that time. So it really was an education to be that house manager and watch all those shows over and over and over again.

[19:32] Jeryl Brunner: Because I know also you were a dancer. So what was one of the first plays that you directed? And how did you make that transition?

[19:42] Lee Sunday Evans: Yeah, well, I was always directing plays. And I went to college, I went to a BFA program and focused on directing and creating new work. So I was always directing and I had always gone to dance class and been dancing and I loved it. I never imagined I would pursue it professionally, but when I got to New York, there were some ways that that world was a little bit more accessible. Like I would just go to class and meet people and hear about auditions and got to work on some really fun downtown experimental dance projects that were really fun and really gratifying. And the theater world was a little hard for me to understand how to like kind of get a leg up, like how to navigate the theater world.

But I worked for several years as Young Jean Lee's associate director and watching her create her own work and watching her produce her work in collaboration with various institutions and then take it out on the road and tour it all over the country and all over the world was a really amazing kind of education about how you make work in a professional context. And that was a little bit of a foothold for me in terms of understanding how to find my footing as a director.

[20:59] Jeryl Brunner: Where did you go to school for your BFA?

[21:03] Lee Sunday Evans: I went to Boston University. One thing I love also is that it's so hard to make theater in New York, especially, you know, it might not be commercial theater per se. And here you are thriving. What would you recommend for people who have a play or piece that they want to mount and they feel like it's just insurmountable, you know, because of rent, because of, you know, in New York, it's just, it's so hard to find the space, it's so hard to find the, the file, all those layers. Is there anything you would recommend, you know, for people who want to get their work up?

[21:50] Lee Sunday Evans: Yeah, I mean, I think New York is always changing, and there's always parts of that change that make the obstacles seem more intimidating, and then other aspects of the change that open up new kinds of possibilities and new doors. So, you know, every project is different and every year is gonna be different. The landscape is gonna be different. But I think, you know, you have to find your team, you know, no one really can do it by yourself. So you really do need your team to figure out how to find the right space, find the right context in which to put up your work, figure out how you're gonna raise the money. And, you know, if you haven't been producing, even producing something at a really small, scrappy level can be a huge way to understand what's important to you as a producer.

And that can help launch you into then producing really at any scale, it's a lot of the same questions, but yeah, you encounter different questions of scale, different questions of pressure, of money. So I would never look past like a kind of opportunity that could seem quote small to put up work and start to understand what your own priorities are and strengths and weaknesses are around producing. But you know, theater people are great problem solvers. Theater people figure out how to get things done and are resourceful and creative. And ultimately, I think the spirit of that is part of what makes theater always, you know, something that that's gonna always be part of, you know, any place where there are people living and trying to figure out the meaning of life and how to treat each other and what our families mean and what power means.

You know, anytime there's a community, there's gonna be a need for that kind of reckoning. And ultimately, I think because of the depth of that very human need, then you figure out, you know, you just have to figure out those questions and be creative and not give up and see where that leads you.

[24:07] Jeryl Brunner: Well, thank you so much, Lee, for coming on and sharing. I can't wait to see more of your work.

[24:13] Lee Sunday Evans: Thank you. Thank you. It's been a delight talking to you.

[24:17] Jeryl Brunner: Yeah, likewise, thank you so much for having me.

[24:19] Lee Sunday Evans: Thank you. Take care.

[24:23] Jeryl Brunner: We're lining the moment to know. The theme song was written by Tom McGovern. This episode was edited by Sarah Goodman and produced by Anna Strauss. Landing strikes.