Music Credit: “Great Round Burn,” by Kiki King, performed by Kiki King and ETHEL. Tonya Beckman: The initial attraction to Taffety Punk was that they do classical work. But they put their own spin on it and make it a really sort of contemporary, relevant kind of work. Jo Reed: That’s actor Tonya Beckman. She’s a member of The Taffety Punk Theatre Company. And this is Art Works, the weekly podcast produced by the National Endowment for the Arts. I'm Josephine Reed. Some of the best theater in Washington, DC is being created by a small theater ensemble that does a great deal with few resources, other than talent, determination, and passion. The Taffety Punk Theatre Company is committed to making classical work exciting, meaningful, and affordable. You think Shakespeare is stuffy? Well, just head to a Taffety Punk bootleg production-- the yearly event in which the company has one day to rehearse and perform one of Shakespeare's plays. And then there was the recent two week run of The Tempest, produced as a Riot Grrrls project, in which all the roles were played by women. And just to keep everyone on their toes-- that particular production had many in the cast playing two roles-- including actor Tonya Beckman, who doubled as Ariel and Caliban, and was equally convincing in both roles. This isn't played for laughs: The result is a refreshingly original look at The Tempest as well as a spectacular evening in the theater for the price of a movie ticket. Here is the versatile and talented Tonya Beckman with some back story about Taffety Punk. Tonya Beckman: Taffety Punk started in, I think, 2004 with a group of friends who were dancers and musicians and actors who had all sort of grown up in DC’s punk world and as they were getting older and developed other interests they started looking around at the art scene in DC and felt that one thing that was missing was affordable theater and the other thing that was missing was something that sort of blended all three interests that they had: acting, music and dance. And so they started out with one show at The Black Cat and it’s grown from there. I’ve been with them since 2009 and became a company member not long after my first show with them. Jo Reed: What was your first show? Tonya Beckman: My very first show was Romeo and Juliet, one of the Riot Grrrls’ Romeo and Juliet. I played Capulet. Jo Reed: What fun. Tonya Beckman: It was great! Jo Reed: Explain what the Riot Grrrls are. Tonya Beckman: Oh, okay. The Riot Grrrls is a series we do almost on a yearly basis of an all-female Shakespeare production, and it started with that production of Romeo and Juliet and it came about because there was another theater in town, a larger theater, that decided to do an all-male Romeo and Juliet. And we just thought, “Well, that’s stinks, because there’s only two female roles in that play in the first place.” And if you’re an actress who does classical theater it’s so hard to get roles anyway, because there are very few female roles. So we decided that we would do Romeo and Juliet at the same time as theirs and had sort of some dueling Romeo and Juliets and it went really well and we like to feel like we were the better production-- <laughs> And— but it was fun and the response was really interesting. Women were so excited to see this and— and we’ve done one almost every year. And we get these wonderful groups-- we get these groups of college students who are studying Shakespeare-- but we also get these groups of women who are just friends and they want to go out and do something and this is one of the things they go do and they get to see themselves sort of reflected in these roles that women don’t really ever get the opportunity to play. And that’s really exciting to see those people come in and see how they react to the shows. And we as actors enjoy it, because we have all the same training that men do. We take all the same combat classes and all of that, and then you finish drama school and you never get a chance to use it until you do shows like this. Jo Reed: Well, I saw The Tempest in which you played both Caliban and Ariel and we’ll talk about that in a bit, but it’s not a gimmick to have women play the roles. Tonya Beckman: It gets treated that way. If you go back and you read reviews of all-female Shakespeare productions, not just ours, but in other places in the country, reviewers, especially male reviewers tend to treat it as it’s this-- Jo Reed: “Isn’t it cute?” Tonya Beckman: “Isn’t that cute?” “I didn’t really believe it, but wasn’t that a nice try?” And it’s not a gimmick. It has a long historical tradition. And the reason that theaters will choose to do an all-male production is because of the historical tradition and trying to re-create the original practices that Shakespeare used. And there’s value in that and there’s value in looking at that. But, Sarah Bernhardt, Charlotte Cushman, all those great Shakespearean ladies from two hundred years ago, they all played the male roles. Charlotte Cushman played Romeo until she was in her sixties. So it’s not a gimmick. It’s been around a long, long time. So there’s something to be learned from it, I think. Jo Reed: It must be so cool, if nothing else, just to be able to sink your teeth into these roles. Tonya Beckman: Yeah, yeah. It really is. Actually, my experience with Riot Grrrls is a little bit different because I’ve continued to play some of the female roles, but I have to say just even in a female role watching and playing opposite women in these roles and watching them just sort of fill up with the opportunity to play a role where you are not just reactive to the man who’s in control, but you are the man in control, is really a wonderful, empowering thing to be part of. I’ve talked to some of the other actresses who said the lines can actually be very difficult to learn because Shakespeare’s women tend to be silent for a long time or they’ll be a fighter and then they go silent, you know, but when they speak it’s because they really have something that they’ve thought about that is important to say now; it’s time to say it. So the female speeches, for the most part, tend to be these really well thought out arguments. They have considered the argument and then they’re going to tell you. Whereas the men are thinking on their feet and they’re making decisions on the fly and so the thoughts can be more disjointed. And if you’re not used to that, because you’re used to these well thought out arguments, it can actually be a little challenging to get your brain in the space so that you can learn them. It’s really kind of interesting, new way of looking at the text, I think. Jo Reed: Speaking of challenging, let’s go back to The Tempest where you and a number of your colleagues as well play dual roles. First, why the decision? Tonya Beckman: I think-- not to speak for the director-- but partly it always has to do with keeping the cast size small and not wanting to ask someone to spend every night with us and, not give them a lot to do but challenge the actors. But thematically and dramaturgically, in the pieces there’s so many interesting parallels you can make by pairing up certain characters and what does that say about the world you’re creating when you have the same actors playing these two opposite ends of the spectrum. Jo Reed: As an audience member I thought it worked-- Tonya Beckman: Yeah. Jo Reed: --and my hat off to that fabulous ensemble. Tonya Beckman: Yeah, they were terrific. Jo Reed: And you-- The physicality that actors had to take on as they were approaching different roles and I think, for you, playing Ariel and Caliban-- talk about different ends of the spectrum in some ways. Explain just a little bit about those characters. Tonya Beckman: Sure. Ariel is a spirit, a sprite, and-- we decided Ariel is a girl for our purposes-- is spoken about as though she is of the air, she is part of the air and the spirit of the island. But she’s very powerful at the same time. And so she works for Prospero. He manages to enslave her and she works for him and helps him create the magic of the island when he needs to do that. And he promises throughout the play, “Do this. Help me achieve what I need to achieve and I’ll set you free.” And then on the other end of the spectrum is Caliban, who is also a native of the island. He’s the son of a witch who lived on the island and died. And Caliban was taken in early on by Prospero and then was rejected and is treated as a slave and so he’s also enslaved, but he has no power. And when Lise Bruneau, who directed it, approached me about it, she had already had this idea of pairing Ariel and Caliban together and I just immediately loved that idea of air and earth, light and dark, and bright and unhappy and it just seemed like a wonderful opportunity to get to flit back and forth playing two sides of the same coin all the time. What is it that made Caliban become angry and bitter and resentful, but Ariel did not. It just raised all these really interesting questions. Jo Reed: I asked you and you very kindly agreed to read a little bit from The Tempest as Ariel and as Caliban-- Tonya Beckman: Yeah. Jo Reed: --so we get a sample of this. So-- Tonya Beckman: Well, why don’t I start with Ariel. Her very first line and it’s just a short little speech where Prospero has called her to come forward. Ariel: All hail, great master! Grave sir, hail! I come To answer thy best pleasure; be’t to fly, To swim, to dive into the fire, to ride On the curl’d clouds, to thy strong bidding, task Ariel and all her quality. Tonya Beckman: And then a little Caliban-- not his first speech, but his first scene when we’re first introduced to him, fighting with Prospero about why he is enslaved. Caliban: This island's mine, by Sycorax my mother, Which thou takest from me. When thou camest first, Thou strokedst me and madest much of me, wouldst give me Water with berries in't, and teach me how To name the bigger light, and how the less, That burn by day and night: and then I loved thee And show'd thee all the qualities o' the isle, The fresh springs, brine-pits, barren place and fertile: Cursed be I that did so! All the charms Of Sycorax, toads, beetles, bats, light on you! For I am all the subjects that you have, Which first was mine own king: and here you sty me In this hard rock, whiles you do keep from me The rest o' the island. Jo Reed: That’s so wonderful. Tonya Beckman: Oh, thank you. Jo Reed: And tell me what backstage was like as you were changing from one to the other, because it was psychological and it was physical and it was emotional. Changing, I mean. Tonya Beckman: Yeah. Yeah, they were some very fast costume changes between these two characters. I would always complain backstage that when I had a long break, I just got to sit there in one costume; but if I had to change, I had thirty seconds to do it. We have a very small backstage so everybody has to help each other through quick changes, sometimes just by not being in the way, because someone will exit stage right and tear across the cross over, which is also our dressing room, and have to enter in a new costume, stage left. So it’s a team effort. But our designer was very helpful in that my Caliban costume just went straight over my Ariel costume. I didn’t have to take one off and put the other on. Caliban was sort of a burlap sack and then a wig. It was fast and at first I was a little flustered and I was like, “How am I gonna center myself to make this entrance?” Jo Reed: That’s exactly what I was gonna ask you. Tonya Beckman: Actually, not being able to do that helped. Jo Reed: How? Tonya Beckman: It helped in the sort of chaotic-ness of Caliban and the anger and the-- just them wanting to rage that that character has, having to make an entrance before you’re quite ready to do it actually helped get in that emotional place. Jo Reed: Interesting. Tonya Beckman: Which, you know, I probably-- if you had asked me before we started, I could have done without, but now looking back on it, I’m like, “Oh, that was actually really a little stroke of fate and really helped in the long run.” Jo Reed: Did you always want to act? Tonya Beckman: No. As a child I was so shy. I was a terribly shy child. All I wanted to do as a kid was read. But I got into acting in high school. I think I took my first acting class as a freshman in high school because it was required to take an arts class and I grew up in a family-- my extended family-- there’s doctors and nurses and engineers, but no artists. I did not grow up with the arts being something that was really encouraged in any way. It wasn’t discouraged, but it just wasn’t a part of our lives and so in that first acting class it was this whole new world, but it was also this safe place and it was the first place I had ever found to express something-- express emotions, express how I felt in a way that felt safe and protected and where there was no judgment. And, in fact, to go crazy was a good thing. And so I was really drawn to that as a shy teenager and it-- it helped me come out of my shell, absolutely. I think I’m still-- I would call myself a reserved person. I’m not super-gregarious, but that painful shyness that I used to have, I think I got rid of it because of the arts. Jo Reed: You went to graduate school. You got an MFA-- Tonya Beckman: Mm-hm. Jo Reed: --in Ohio. Tonya Beckman: --in Ohio, yeah. Jo Reed: What made you decide to come to Washington, DC? Tonya Beckman: Oh, it was an accident really. I’d been living and working in Chicago and, in a previous marriage, my ex-husband wanted to come to grad school here for a one-year program. Got here and went, “Wow! There’s a lot of theater here!” I had done no research. I knew nothing when I got here and started auditioning, started working right away, was very welcomed by the theater community here. It’s a wonderful, big but close-knit community that-- everybody I met was so welcoming and started working and at the end of that year, said to my ex-husband, “Oh, I’m staying.” <laughs> “You do what you need to do, but I’m staying.” Jo Reed: Now what attracted you to Taffety Punk? Tonya Beckman: The initial attraction to Taffety Punk was that they do classical work. That’s what I trained in, that’s what I always wanted to do ever since I was, you know, in college and taking my first Shakespeare class. I always connected with it and found it challenging and exciting and really wanted to focus on that and Taffety Punk, that’s what they do, but they put their own spin on it and make it a really sort of contemporary, relevant kind of work. Because there’re a lot of Shakespeare companies out there and a lot of them, it’s like going to a museum in some ways, where you’re seeing Elizabethan clothes and Elizabethan ideas of what it might have been performed like. And that’s great and that’s fun to do sometimes, but finding out what makes us love Shakespeare today by delving into these plays as our modern selves has always been really interesting to me and that’s something Taffety Punk does. And I also really support and really believe in the mission to make the arts affordable to everybody no matter what your income level. Jo Reed: Yeah, talk about that, because that’s a guiding philosophy of Taffety Punk. Tonya Beckman: It is. It is. We purposely will keep our budgets low for our designers and we try to pay everybody a salary as best that we can. But in terms of production budgets we’ll keep them purposefully low in order to challenge ourselves to be more creative and that also helps us keep the ticket prices low. And we try to keep them as low as possible. We don’t feel that it should ever cost more to go see a play than it does to see a movie. And that’s really important to us. And we are a company in residence at Capitol Hill Arts Workshop and that’s their same philosophy, too. They teach a variety of classes to kids and adults, all kinds of different visual arts to performance to music-- everything. And they don’t turn kids away because they can’t pay. They find a way to get a kid in a class. And those two philosophies really line up well and so it’s been a great partnership in that way. Jo Reed: It’s a good home. Tonya Beckman: Yeah, it’s a great home. They’re very good to us. Jo Reed: Tell me about the experience of working with an ensemble as opposed to what I think most actors-- Tonya Beckman: Mm-hm. Jo Reed: --their experiences are quite different. They’re-- Tonya Beckman: Jumping from company to company. Yeah. Jo Reed: Exactly. Tonya Beckman: We do have a small ensemble of actors that we work together all the time, but we’re also free to go to other companies, which I think is very good for us. The great thing about an ensemble is that you develop a shorthand and you know each other so well that I can look at Esther Williamson, who’s another actor in the company and go, “Oh, that’s where she is in the process and I need to leave her alone for a few more days and then I can talk to her about such-and-such,” or something like that. And you develop a shorthand and a really quick way of working because you were so used to each other and you know how each individual person works and fits into the whole. But we all also do a lot of work outside the company as well, and I think that’s really good for us because it brings new perspectives and then we don’t get bored with each other. So when we do come together for a show, we’re all really happy to be working together again. Jo Reed: How many shows does Taffety Punk do a year, more or less? Tonya Beckman: It depends. Typically, three and then we’ll have some small events as well. We do what we call the “Bootleg Shakespeare”, which is a one-day sort of unrehearsed production and we try to do that every summer and then we’ll do some smaller events as we get invited to do them in small companies. And we’ll have a few readings and things that we’re developing that aren’t quite ready yet, but we want to show an audience and see where it stands, that kind of thing. Jo Reed: That’s what I was gonna ask you: How does an ensemble work in practice? How do you make decisions, “Okay, we’re going to do this and this person will direct,” and how does that whole thing morph? Tonya Beckman: Well, we have a very wonderful leader in Marcus Kyd who sort of takes on the organizational aspect of a lot of that. And I think he’s fostered a wonderful environment in that I think we all feel free to say, “Hey, Marcus, I really want to do Two Gentlemen of Verona sometime. Can we make that happen?” And he puts it on a list and eventually we get to it. I-- just last year we did a rep of two shows about writers and those were scripts I had brought five years ago and just said, “These are great.” And then I forgot all about them and-- <laughs> and then last year they ended up on our season in a rep together, which was Marcus’ idea and they went together beautifully and it was great. And I had totally forgotten that I was the one who had brought them to the company in the first place. So, I think once something gets on the list, things we want to try to work on at some point, we all kind of forget whose projects they were, and just sort of jump in together and own them together. Jo Reed: And is there a tension sometimes between the ensemble and an individual? Tonya Beckman: Well, I’m sure we all get mad at each other from time to time. <laughs> I think we all have such different strengths and weaknesses that we all have our thing that we bring to the table and I always feel like that’s respected, even if I don’t agree with someone’s choice or I don’t want to be involved in a certain project, or whatever it may be. I don’t know that I have ever really felt a tension between what this person’s agenda is and what mine is, because I think the overall agenda we’re all in agreement about. Jo Reed: I’m always curious about this, because actors obviously also go to the theater a lot. <laughs> Tonya Beckman: Yeah, yeah. Jo Reed: And because you like classical theater, I assume you also see classical theater a lot. Tonya Beckman: Mm-hm. Jo Reed: Has there been a time when you remember being so moved by a role as an audience member and then you’re able to play it on stage? Tonya Beckman: Oh, yeah. Jo Reed: And what is that like for you? Tonya Beckman: Oh, gosh, I can remember very early in my career seeing this amazing production of The Crucible. Now whether I would think it was amazing now I don’t know. But at the time I was blown away by this production of The Crucible. I found it terrifying and the woman who played Elizabeth Proctor—it’s --you go to the theater sometimes and you get inspired because it’s so good and then sometimes you despair because you feel like you’ll never accomplish that. You know? And I remember thinking that about her and also the woman playing Abigail. It just made me want to play the role of Abigail so much. And then when I went into grad school I got the opportunity to play it in a classroom. Yeah, I can remember feeling like I-- not that I wanted to re-create what I saw, but like, those images, those early experiences of great theater just never-- they never leave you and they inform what you do. You know, even when you don’t even realize it, you know. And a couple years ago I had been cast in two productions of Twelfth Night back to back, one at Taffety Punk and one at the Folger. And I remember going into that second production going, “Should I have been trying to steal what the other girl was doing in the other production?” And I think it was just there. It, like, informed what I was doing without me even having to try. Jo Reed: Were you playing the same role in both? Tonya Beckman: I was playing two different roles, so I was trying to, like, think, “Well, I’m playing Mariah this time. Should I have been paying more attention to what Mariah was doing last time so I can steal from it?” And-- <laughs> but I think I was actually very informed by that other actress’s performance even though they were two very different productions with very different styles and doing what she did wouldn’t have worked, but knowing how she came to her choices helped me in making my choices. Does that make sense? Jo Reed: It does, in a way. Tonya Beckman: Yeah. Jo Reed: If you think of the characters as sculpture, it’s just moving around it and seeing it-- Tonya Beckman: Yeah. Jo Reed: --from a different perspective. Tonya Beckman: Yeah! Absolutely. Yeah. That’s a great way to look at it. Jo Reed: I can imagine being up on stage and performing in a role that was so moving at one point and there are just-- must be a physical feeling that comes over you as, like, “Oh my god, I’m actually doing this.” Tonya Beckman: Yeah, there is-- there are these sort of out-of-body experiences sometimes. One of the wonderful things about working in classical theater is that you’re part of such an amazing tradition and I always feel that when I’m playing a classical role, that many, many people have done this before me and I’m just adding onto that. And that feels like a huge honor and responsibility to me, that I love being part of. And then there’s those moments on stage where you realize that everyone in this room is listening so hard to what I have to say right now. It’s an amazing feeling when you realize that the audience is dead silent or you’re making them laugh really loudly. You know, it’s a powerful feeling. It really, really is. It’s-- and it’s addictive and I think it’s why we do this thing, you know. Jo Reed: Were you scared the first time you got up on a stage? Tonya Beckman: Oh, yeah. I can remember— I don’t remember the play. It was something we were doing, like, in high school and it was the first time I was ever in an actual play and hearing my voice quiver as I was speaking, ‘cause I was so nervous. But that eventually goes away. You know, like, I don’t get so nervous like that anymore. I get excited. And I think one of the keys to not having stage fright is being able to identify the difference between nervous and being excited. I get nervous when I have family or close friends in the audience. Critics don’t make me so nervous anymore. I got used to that, but family and friends make me nervous. <laughs> Jo Reed: I just want to speak for a moment about arts education and how vital that is. I mean, in your case, acting class—it literally was a life-changing experience for you. Tonya Beckman: Oh yeah. If I had not found theater I don’t think I would be living the same kind of life with as many wonderful people in it, for example, because I just never would have come out of my shell. I never would have found the confidence without it, to know that my voice matters, too, and that I have things to say and I just don’t think I would’ve have found it without high school acting class. I also think my very early experiences as a high school student seeing theater were hugely, hugely transformative. I remember the production I saw that made me want to be an actor when I was-- for a job, for a living-- was when I was a junior in high school and we went on a school field trip to the Milwaukee Rep to see a production of Tartuffe. And I was floored by this production. It was so funny and, because the play is a satire about religious hypocrisy there was something sort of dangerous about it and I just felt that sort of danger and that you can change people’s minds about the world with this stuff and that felt so powerful and dangerous to me and I just had to be part of that. And I don’t think I necessarily would’ve discovered what an important and powerful thing that is without going to see that play that day. Jo Reed: Tonya, what’s next? What’s next on your agenda? Tonya Beckman: For me personally, I just jumped into a production of Passion Play at Forum Theatre, very late in the process, taking over for someone else who had to leave the production. And that opens officially on the twenty-second, but we start performances on the nineteenth. Jo Reed: Of March. Tonya Beckman: Of March. And it runs through mid-April and then over at Taffety Punk we are doing the first quarto of Hamlet, an eight-actor version of this very wild and weird script of Hamlet and that will be in May. Jo Reed: Okay, finally, the burning question-- where did the name Taffety Punk come from? Tonya Beckman: Taffety Punk comes from All’s Well That Ends Well, talking-- I can’t remember the context anymore. I haven’t read it in a while, but referring to someone as a “well dressed whore” and when it was time to choose a company name, officially pull a company together and choose a name, they thought that that sort of described actors pretty well. <laughs> Tonya Beckman: ‘Cause we’ll go all over and we’ll do whatever, but we want a nice costume, right? <laughs> Jo Reed: Tonya, thank you so much. Tonya Beckman: Thank you. Jo Reed: It was such a pleasure. Tonya Beckman: Thank you, thank you. Jo Reed: You’re welcome. <music> Jo Reed: That's actor Tonya Beckman-- she's a core member of the Taffety Punk Theatre Company. You can find out what the theater company’s up to at taffetypunk.com <overlapping music> You've been listening to Art Works produced at the National Endowment for the Arts. I'm Josephine Reed. Thanks for listening.