What is right is that a
man who was dealing
with his mortality
looked at a friend
and said, “I’m gonna
trust you with
my stories.
Tell them.”
– RUBEN SANTIAGO-HUDSON
COLLABORATORS
Director Todd Kreidler & August Wilson
Before arriving
in New York for
How I Learned
What I Learned
rehearsals, director
Todd Kreidler spoke
with Literary Fellow
Whitney Eggers about
his relationship with
August Wilson, and the
spell Wilson cast over
those who worked with him.
Todd Kreidler and his son, Evan August, 2013.
Signature: Can you tell me about how you got involved with August’s work?
Lance
Reddick in
Seven Guitars,
2006.
TK: We met at Pittsburgh Public Theater, where I was assistant to the artistic director at the time. When King Hedley came up, they said August Wilson needed an assistant. Our relationship began the first day in rehearsal; we went outside on break and
August started telling me stories about when he worked as a cook at Little Brother’s in
Minneapolis, and about this guy named Clarkson, who at 90 was going back to school to
take geometry and how he admired that. At some point Marion McClinton came down and
said, “August, you going to come up to the room?” And he said, “Me and Todd are just on
break.” And he was like, “Yeah, man that was like two and a half hours ago.” We’d fallen into
this spell of storytelling, common around August, but new to me. So we started these long
breaks, these stories. We started talking about the script, and that opened some door between
us because we just started very informally working, re-arranging things. It was a professional but
also very close personal relationship.
Signature: How did How I Learned come about?
TK: When I met him he had this idea that he wanted to do a solo piece.
He had these stories from 1968 – a lot of them are in the piece now – that he
would tell when he was asked to speak at an opening night or donor dinners.
He would always talk about wanting to do this show. So he was in Seattle,
and Sharon Ott, artistic director at Seattle Rep, said, “Why don’t you
develop it for our Hot Type Festival?” So one night in October 2002 he
called me and said, “Man, I need a director, man. Do you wanna do it?”
One of many ways in which I was honored by our relationship. So, yeah,
that’s how it got real.
Signature: What made you decide it was time to revisit How I Learned?
TK: I’ve been reluctant, but when we hit that decade mark this summer,
I realized it was time to either do it or let someone else do it. It’s a piece
that should be out there. When he was ill, he said to me, “I want you to do
this with another actor,” and “I think you should do it with Ruben.” I’m
driven in part by that. I also think Signature’s the right platform. We get to do
it in a high-profile yet intimate way, which is almost impossible to pull off in
this business. I want people to have the kind of experience I did on all those
street corners and hotel rooms. Anybody who’s worked with him, they’ll
talk about the three-hour breakfasts or the stop on a street corner and the
next thing you know you miss a date or a show because you would fall into
this spell. I don’t want any pretense that we’re going to create this kind of
spell. But secretly, between you and me, that’s what I want to happen. n
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