In Lucas Hnath’s play Dana H. the central character, Dana Higginbotham, a psych ward chaplain, recounts the devastating ordeal of being kidnapped by one of her patients for five months. Throughout the play the voice the audience hears belongs to the real life Higginbotham, who is Hnath’s mother.
However, the person on stage who portrayed Higginbotham was actor Deirdre O’Connell. For 75 minutes O’Connell embodied Hnath’s mother while flawlessly lip syncing Higginbotham’s words. As the New York Times put it, O’Connell is “brilliantly pulling off one of the strangest and most difficult challenges ever asked of an actor.”
Dana H. had its New York debut at the Vineyard Theatre in New York City and ultimately moved to Broadway where it was nominated for three Tony awards. When O’Connell won a Tony for her performance for her riveting and out-of-the-box portrayal of Higginbotham, her speech was one of the most quoted of the evening.
“I would love this little prize to be a token,” said O’Connell, “for every person who is wondering, ‘Should I be trying to make something that could work on Broadway or that could win me a Tony Award? Or should I be making the weird art that is haunting me, that frightens me, that I don’t know how to make, that I don’t know if anyone in the whole world will understand?’ Please let me standing here be a little sign to you from the universe to make the weird art.”
For over 41 Vineyard Theatre has been making the weird art. The company is committed to nurturing and producing boundary-pushing new plays and musicals, challenging what theater can be.
This past week Vineyard Theater held an epic celebration at their gala to honor longtime Vineyard artist Joe Morton. Over the past two decades the Emmy-winning theater, TV and film acting titan, (Scandal, King Lear, Turn Me Loose), has collaborated with Vineyard Theatre, starring and directing in many of their productions.
Not only is he also a member of Vineyard’s board of directors, Morton has been a mentor to public high school students in Vineyard’s education programs. During the night, visionary producer Sally Horchow and Craig A. Manzino, a partner at Armanino Advisory LLC, who are ferocious champions of Vineyard, were also feted.
Vineyard Theatre has transferred 11 shows to Broadway. The theater has been a creative home to Paula Vogel who premiered Indecent, How I Learned to Drive, and The Long Christmas Ride there. Vineyard has showcased the work of countless playwrights like Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Tarell Alvin McCraney, Rajiv Joseph, and Antonette Nwandu.
Last fall Vineyard Theatre premiered the Wind and the Rain: A Story About Sunny’s Bar, on a barge in Red Hook, Brooklyn. In 300 Paintings, by comedian and artist Sam Kissajukian, which delves into how painting impacted his mental state, Kissajukian’s actual work was showcased throughout the theater’s lobby, turning it into a gallery.
And in May Vineyard Theatre will debut Bowl EP by Nazareth Hassan. A co-production with National Black Theatre in association with the New Group, the theater is being transformed into a skate park with live skateboarding as the audience surrounds on all sides.
Even during a time when off Broadway theater is facing a financial crisis, Vineyard Theatre continues to be devoted to legions of artists to get their voices heard. “In the most uncertain funding landscape in recent history, they’re going to build a skate park in the theater,” said Sarah Gancher who wrote the Wind and the Rain. “It makes me so proud to be a Vineyard artist. And it makes me think about how the Vineyard is a place where I come to talk, celebrate, mourn, discuss and be inspired. And I want to be a part of the community keeping it for all the artists with so much to say and so many projects to manifest.”
Throughout the evening at the Edison Ballroom Morton’s collaborators revealed how meaningful his mentorship meant to them. Phylicia Rashad shared how she first encountered the magic of Morton in 1971. It was during her first year living in New York and she saw Morton as the understudy in a play way, way downtown.
“He was brilliant. I watched him and wondered, ‘who is this person?,’” she recalled. “As actors, we study techniques. We master them sometimes. But when you see an artist on stage who is beyond the technique. Who has entered the life of the play and isn’t presenting you with his acting skills—but showing you a human being—that is an extraordinary event.”
At the end of the night Morton reflected on the sense of a village that the Vineyard Theatre continues to foster. “ This evening could not have happened without the Vineyard Theatre and without the actors, the producers, the writers, the staff,” he said. “This community made this happen.”
Morton also told the crowd that he hopes that the theater continues to play an important role in holding a mirror up to who we are. He went on to say that in every role he plays he asks himself five key questions: Who am I? Where am I going? Who do I expect to meet? What do I want? And to what extent am I willing to get what I want?
He believes those important questions should also be asked of our nation. “We have to make those things very clear. Otherwise, we’re going to end up in a mess,” he added. “But we have theater, film, sculptors, painters. We have artists who need to stand up and say, ‘Here is what is going on.’ So take this beautiful energy and use it to chronicle what is happening in our country and especially in the world of the arts.”