Freshman year, first semester. I walked into an audition for A Midsummer Night’s Dream wearing sneakers, jeans, and an ironic joke t-shirt with Shakespeare’s face on it. I don’t remember what monologue I’d picked. I was nervous, and felt like I didn’t belong there yet. My experience with theater in middle and high school had taught me that only those who had LOTS of past experience got cast, and since I was new, and a freshman, I likely wouldn’t be chosen. I did the best I could, and left feeling absolutely certain I wasn’t going to get into the show because Jonathan Wilson had the most stoic expression I’d ever seen anyone have, let alone a director. He stared at me like I was translucent. I held it together, and finished my monologue, and I figured that was that.
In fact, I was so convinced I wasn’t in the show that I went home for the long weekend, and only found out I’d been cast in the ensemble when a stage manager called my cell phone to ask why I hadn’t signed up for a costume fitting time slot yet.
“But I’m not in the show,” I replied, confused.
“You are, actually.” She sounded perplexed. “You’re in the ensemble. Did you not check the cast list?”
I sat in silence, my mind racing. “But I didn’t have a callback this week. How could I be in the ensemble if I didn’t get a callback?”
After a pause, the stage manager gently said that wasn’t how things were done here, and she was sorry there had been a miscommunication. She helped me set a time to go to the costume shop for a fitting after the holiday weekend was over and I was back in town.
I kept thinking about Jonathan’s stare. Jonathan saw me. He gave me a chance.
Sophomore year, Jonathan was directing Guys and Dolls. A dream show for me, a favorite from my childhood. I kept saying that if I just got in the ensemble I’d be so happy to work with him again, and work with him on one of my favorite musicals. I wouldn’t let myself get my hopes up but I went and did my audition. Friends who were on the production team later told me that when I left the room, Jonathan told everyone: “She’s hot right now. She’s gonna be great.”
A few days later, when I found out he had cast me as Sarah Brown I thought I was hallucinating. I could not believe he was putting that much trust in me. But he did.
Senior year, I was on his assistant directing team for Intimate Apparel and just listened and learned… After rehearsal one day he turned to all of us ADs and spread his hands wide, saying: “All right, ladies… where are we going to lunch?”
“Well… we were thinking about Thai food.”
“MmHMM. What are you gonna get?”
“Um… pad thai.. fried rice… crab rangoon?”
“What’s a crab rangoon?”
“Jonathan…. have you never had crab rangoon?”
He marched us out of the theater and we climbed into his beautiful car. He chauffeured us to the nearest Thai place, and said he was buying everyone lunch. He sat in the middle of the long table just enjoying every bite and telling story after story. He was dazzled by the crab rangoon.
I can never be sure how much of an impact I may or may not have had on Jonathan – are we ever sure, with those who teach us? He taught me so much in classes and in rehearsal processes and in all the tiny interactions I had with him in between. He was a force of nature, whose very being drew all of us to him – the way he’d wade from room to room at cast parties and just chuckle at the chaos around him. The way the sound of his voice booming a correction could make the entire world stop spinning. The way his fingers wove through the air as though he were playing a harp or picking out the words he wanted to use when giving a lecture or notes after a rehearsal. As with that very first audition for him, I have always thought that I was just one of many students, admirers, and supporters he had. One of thousands probably, maybe more over all the years he worked and taught in theater. But when he pushed me, made me work harder, made me rethink what I thought was easy, made me grow, and gave me his serious nod of approval when I got it…
When I directed Steel Magnolias my senior year, and Jonathan just looked at me, nodding and nodding and smiling…
The impact Jonathan had on me was astronomical. He and his beautiful, wonderful wife Nan both filled me with such determination, inspiration, and wonder. They were Titania and Oberon, and always will be in my mind’s eye: magnificent, unyielding, artful and strange and beloved. I’m so thankful I had time with them both… and I wish it had been more.
I’ll never understand how Jonathan knew what I was capable of when I had no idea who I was yet.
And I was there the day he tried crab rangoons.
Alyson Grauer 