CMU School of Drama


Thursday, October 17, 2024

Director Mary Zimmerman on Making Beloved Stories Live in Three Dimensions

San Francisco Classical Voice: “I suddenly thought — a teeny-tiny, itty-bitty adaptation of The Magic Flute,” she recalled, discussing how she conjured up a production for the small stage at Chicago’s Goodman Theatre. The Matchbox Magic Flute premiered there earlier this year and is now set for a run in the San Francisco Bay Area, Oct. 18 – Dec. 8, presented by Berkeley Repertory Theatre.

1 comment:

Jack Nuciforo said...

I LOVE what Mary Zimmerman has to say about boredom:” I think the ability to tolerate boredom is important because that is where you start growing…Dreamy unspooling space in the head needs time to happen”. I completely agree with this. Especially today, we are so afraid of being bored or unstimulated. We have a hundred apps to ensure we are always entertained and occupied. I don’t think boredom is necessarily a bad thing. Especially for a production like The Magic Flute that invokes a sense of childlike wonder and playfulness, giving your mind time to wander and get lost in thought could be a really effective way to generate big, dreamlike ideas (like Zimmerman says). We tend to look outward for inspiration, and there’s definitely something to be said for that. Pinterest is my best friend when I’m trying to generate ideas for a design project. But I think it’s equally important to look inward. What excites us? What questions do we have? There’s a lot to learn about yourself and your process that you can only find out once you fully accept and give yourself over to boredom.