Dramatic Personalities

Lumina Studio co-founders love the limelight

BY MITCHELL TROPIN

In the middle of World War II, a small group of adults and children in London were seeking shelter from Hitler's bombs during the Blitzkrieg. They wandered into an abandoned theatre, where they encountered an elderly stage manager. To ease the children's fear, the manager proceeded to tell them a fairy tale, and the old decaying stage was transformed into the setting for Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale.

Lumina Studio Theatre's innovative staging of the Bard's play is typical of what you find at this inter-generational drama organization, where actors from age six to 56 perform Shakespeare and original plays.

The creative fuel for the plays comes from the fertile minds of the studio's directors, David Minton and Jillian Raye. For over two decades, the couple has traveled from big cities to small towns in pursuit of their acting dreams. But their dreams fully blossomed in Takoma Park, where Lumina has been a part of the community since 1997.

When Raye started Lumina in New York City, she wanted to teach drama to children in a fresh way, to gave young potential actors the tools they need to succeed professionally and to empower them in all other parts of their lives. From those initial classes and relocation to Takoma Park, Lumina has grown into a company where the unexpected is part of the journey. But Lumina is not children's theatre; it is a theatre company that explores the possibilities that working with young actors can offer.

"We work with people of all ages in our shows, incorporating and working with their youth or age as creative elements in our productions," Raye says. "Each show is conceived as an imaginative theatrical journey from start to finish. We treat each production as a professional event, even though the performers are students and at varying levels of expertise, regardless of their age. We assume young people deserve to enjoy the richness of such an endeavor with us as do the older actors."

In Minton and Raye's Takoma Park home, hints of Lumina are everywhere, with props for future productions stacked on tables. A massive piece of scenery with an abstract design from a prior show has become a wall hanging.

Describing the creative process behind Lumina productions, Raye says, "David often writes a framing device for the Shakespearean productions. For instance, for Winter's Tale, because it's about very adult passions, we had to make it fairy tale."

Talking about his wife's approach to the productions, Minton says, "Jillian brings an almost ‘opera' design to them in the way she conceives them, working on a large scale that reflects her dance experience."

Placing Shakespeare in unexpected settings is a hallmark of Lumina. For Romeo and Juliet, Minton and Raye used Brighton, England during the early 1960s as the setting. The seaside resort town often was the site for clashes between rival teenage gangs the Mods and Rockers. To further re-create the period, rock musicians from Blair High blared out the songs of The Who and the Rolling Stones during the play. Similarly, for Winter's Tale, Minton and Raye had local musician Karen Ashbrook perform early English music.

That same creative element is being enlisted for Lumina's fall 2003 production, Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing. The play will take place in a re-created World War II USO Club. To add authenticity, jazz musicians will play the music of that era.

Raye and Minton come from highly different backgrounds, but they crossed paths in a remote part of West Texas, working at a theatre created by a woman who was on a mission from God.

Born and raised in Melbourne, Australia, Raye recalls seeing her first ballet at age 3 and becoming "totally obsessed...I wore this lilac fairy costume from Sleeping Beauty all the time around the house."

After taking classical dance training for many years, Raye noticed she really enjoyed ballet theatre–dance roles that involve acting–rather than pure dance. After coming to America for a marriage that didn't work out, Raye enrolled in an undergraduate drama program at the University of Florida and discovered Shakespeare. Despite being warned it would limit her career, Raye was determined to do the Bard.

Meanwhile, in southern Virginia, Minton was a senior at Petersburg High School. An acting career didn't seem to be on the horizon, but fate stepped in.

The high school was presenting Rodgers and Hammerstein's Carousel, and in a school with few male students, Minton was asked to take on the smaller part of Mr. Snow. Shortly after rehearsals began, the drama teacher approached Minton.

"We have a problem," Minton's teacher said. "Our Billy Bigelow has quit."

After taking on the show's lead male role, Minton's acting career was on the move–a track he has never regretted.

"I have always appreciated how theatre creates a community consisting of the audience, the playwright, and the actors. I always have enjoyed the storytelling involved in drama and the chance to be somebody else," he says.

Minton and Raye were still hundreds of miles apart when an eccentric woman named Marjorie Morris set the process in motion to bring them together.

Morris was an English professor at a small college in Odessa, a town in Western Texas where oil rigs dwarf people and the treeless land is so flat that an oncoming car is visible from 10 miles away. Perhaps Odessa seems an unlikely place for any theatre, much less one devoted to a 400-year-old English playwright, but Morris received, in her words, "a vision from God." He told her to build in Odessa "the most nearly authentic replica of Shakespeare's theatre yet attempted."

An unstoppable force, Morris succeeded in building the Globe of the Great Southwest, a remarkable copy of the original theatre, rivaling even the replica in London's South Bank.

After graduating from Washington & Lee, Minton came to Odessa after receiving a call from a director who needed someone to play the fool in Love's Labour's Lost. Despite the negative aspects of moving to a remote part of the southwest, Minton could not turn down a chance to perform Shakespeare.

Raye had heard about the Globe of the Great Southwest and called to audition. After spending time as an undergraduate in Florida, Raye thought life in Odessa, even in the summer, would not be too bad. However, after dealing with the town's isolation and scorching heat, Raye understood why locals called Odessa " Slow-death-a."

An early cast party brought the two actors together. After joining forces, they made a simple plan: spend a short time in Odessa, staying only long enough to make some money, then move to New York. But one summer turned into almost a decade.

Performing in Odessa presented its own challenges. In a town where the primary source of income is oil, Shakespeare was not a priority for the local working class. They favored "reading girlie magazines, drinking, fighting, and shooting things," Raye says. "If we were lucky, there would be 30 people in the audience."

It was standing-room only, however, when the Globe would perform annually The House of Saul, a Biblical drama that featured tympani drums for emphasizing the actor's lines. The play was a sensation in Odessa.

"People would be hanging from the rafters," Raye says.

Despite the isolation, the small audiences, and the miserable pay of Odessa, Raye sees the positive side of those years.

"We got to do our hearts' desire–acting–and we met our hearts' desire," he says.

From Odessa, Minton and Raye moved east to Addison, a small town outside Dallas. There Minton helped build the Addison Centre Theatre into one of the best regional playhouses in the country. Minton took on a new role: general manager.

Along the way, Minton discovered he enjoyed coaching other actors. Raye found she enjoyed designing sets. The resulting plays were experimental and lively. One of the young actors that Minton helped coach was Nick Stahl, now a Hollywood actor who is starring in Terminator 3.

Realizing that he needed the tools to be a good theatre manager, Minton earned an MBA in planning and policy. From Texas the couple moved to New York, where Minton started working with the Hispanic acting company, ITAR, a company founded by John Leguizamo's mother, Luz.

Minton and Raye's home in Brooklyn and work New York City were heavenly changes from the harshness of Texas. But one day, the couple's daughter, Imogen, mentioned how much she missed the drama classes that Raye taught to children in Dallas. Raye decided to restart the classes, and Lumina Studio Theatre was born. (By the way, Imogen is named after the heroine in Shakespeare's play, Cymbeline.)

Wanting something different for her students, Raye decided to use a teaching method she had experienced while growing up in Australia. The method, created by Austrian philosopher Rudolph Steiner, involves speech and drama techniques that "focus on the basics of recognizing that the sounds of speech each have a particular purpose and activity, in the case of the consonants, and for the vowels a state of soul or being," she says. "When articulated and enlivened actively by the human breath these sounds create an aesthetic image–a living sculpture which is perceived supersensibly by the listener as well as intellectually."

The method also focuses on specific elements as a basis for character development, what Raye describes as "the connection of head, heart, and hand to the dramatic, lyric and epic styles."

Raye's approach also incorporates Steiner's basic gestures of speech for analyzing and interpreting text and creating the appropriately varied delivery of that text.

"We find these techniques give us a very workable common vocabulary with the students," she says.

In December 1996, Minton received an offer to come to Washington and help a dance company that was just beginning to establish itself. The group was Liz Lerman's Dance Exchange, which was on the verge of moving to its new Takoma Park location.

Minton found himself working with Lerman, who was just beginning to explore the possibilities of inter-generational dance. Lerman's efforts would have a big influence on Minton and Raye.

Recalling seeing the Dance Exchange perform for the first time, Raye says, "It was a revelation to me that someone would have the courage to do what Liz is doing–presenting an older performer and showing that they have something to say."

Like Lerman's company, Lumina "doesn't see age as a barrier to unique programming," Minton says. "In fact, age helps. Working with young people, you get to see a different aspect–the other side of the spectrum from working with older actors."

At the same time, Lumina was taking off with student classes doubling in size every session. Raye had more than she could handle. A change was needed if Lumina was to continue growing. The decision was made: Minton would take off his hat as theatrical/dance business manager and become acting coach and director.

"It required a huge leap of faith on our part," Raye says. "We did not know whether the business could support two persons." That was three years ago.

Minton took a major step forward himself earlier this year when Lumina staged a play he wrote, The Sleep. A twist on the Faust legend, the play asks the question, "What if you could live your life over again, what would you wish for? Perhaps more importantly, what would you give up to get your wish?" Minton was inspired to write the play about getting a second chance after a friend dealt with such questions while fighting ovarian cancer.

Minton also is sought after as a teacher of fight direction, where he shows actors the proper way to use centuries-old swords. In a quick demonstration, Minton says that a simple backwards step by an actor with a sword can make him appear vulnerable, while a graceful turn can transform that same actor is a menacing attacker.

"You begin to appreciate the thought that must go into each movement of the legs, hands, and arms. Everything has to be perfectly choreographed."

For Raye, the challenge of running Lumina "is making the most of our opportunities, which is something we do because we are always overextending ourselves. [But] if you have the passion, you will work it out."

Learn more about Lumina Studio from their web site: www.luminastudio.org.