Today we’d like to introduce you to Martin French.

Hi Martin, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.

I grew up far from the bright lights and the arts world, but like a lot of people in Ireland of the time, I grew up with culture and education being important., regardless of the economic situation. I was interested in storytelling from very young, reading constantly, and hoovering up anything I could watch that was telling a story on TV. I happened to be lucky enough to do well at school, and that helped me move to go to university in our capital city. It was there that my eyes were opened to a broader experience of the arts than was possible in my local small town or village at the time. All at once, I immersed myself in mulptiplicity of experiences of storytelling, going beyond the linear narrative driven stuff I had grown up with on TV and in books.

It was there that I started to understand that I had something to say that was unique, that I have a different perspective on the world that was more than “the wrong answer” for whatever exam I was set to do. My need to share that perspective, and my excitement in experiencing theatre and literature led to me directing a play for the first time. I have every suspicion that any merit in that production was most probably due to the actors rather than any great insight of mine. But from that I learned that I had a way to tell stories and to create and that creating and telling stories with people was by far the most rewarding experience of any that I had ever had.

From there it grew, with many, many side-tracks. I completed my undergraduate and found an opportunity to continue my studies, this time in theatre. A couple of years after that concluded, I managed to get a job as a theatre technician part-time, and then another part-time theatre technician role was added to it. These provided me in my off time with the opportunity to experiment, to take risks, and to have the space to explore, which helped me develop my craft as a director.

I took break from directing for a few years when I moved to work in technical theatre in London, before meeting my soon-to-be-wife, and moving on to the US. I had thought to quit theatre at that point, and explore something different. But after a five year break, I found myself teaching theatre, and having to direct a student show. It was like the years fell away, and I realized that this was a thing that I needed to have in my life, and resuming my work as a director, as an artist, became a priority in my life. That was 2012, and since then I have directed over 30 different shows here in the United States.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?

In theatre, no career is either direct or even- there are always challenges on the way. Looking back, they all appear now to have helped on the journey, been opportunities to learn, to add something new to my box of tricks, or even simply to refresh my eyes by stepping back for a spell. I would be surprised by anyone who can say without contradiction that their life in theatre has been a focused and undistracted path. Indeed, I would worry for them if accurate – theatre is inherently messy and the range of understanding of human experience that serves it best needs to be regularly nourished with grief and success, with joy and frustration.

What comes to my mind today as a major obstacle on my journey has my own self belief. In our twenties, particularly if male, we are granted a mountain of self-belief, utterly hollow; presumably this is necessary biologically to make up for our lack of common sense. While I now feel somewhat ashamed about the confidence I had then, I suspect that it was ultimately something that allowed me to make mistakes and put me in a place to learn lessons, maybe not at the time, but certainly in retrospect.

When I first stepped back from directing, I was just a year or more older than 30. While I continued as a theatre technician, I was able to carry that confidence through my ignorance and into experience. However, coming back to directing in my late 30s, after having time to reflect on my prior experiences, and practices, I was nervous. I saw my previous behavior as less professional than I had thought at the time. To add to this, I was now working in a very different country, one that I still had not quite got the hand of, and one which had an almost entirely different set of reference points. Finally, I was a lot older, and a lot older than the students I was going to start directing with.

The result was that I was going into the rehearsal room with a great degree of uncertainly. Would I be able to adopt a better approach that reflected my personal learning? Would they understand what I had to say? Would the cultural references I would make to help them understand things prove to be a greater hinderance than a help? Would I seem completely out of touch to them?

The answer to most of these questions was kind of yes and kind of no, but the failings have led to greater triumphs. I think that my age helped me, and has continued to do in terms of granting me authority. It also helped me to be slower in making judgements, and more careful in my framing of things. I was also able to put the years of reflection on previous brashness into action, but while I wasn’t learning from scratch, there was a lot of re-evaluation needed as I worked – of course there must always be re-evaluation thoughout the career of any artist, but I think that much of this was necessary to simply succeed at the basics. As for cultural references, I think that has been both a curse and a blessing – even now, years later, I still struggle with making US appropriate references. However, I have tried to incorporate that lack of connection to allow me to give far greater space and trust to the actors to become a direct part of the creative process, and allowing them freedom to take control of their role. This has been a major benefit, and something for which I am known now.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?

I am lucky to be close to Louisville, KY, which is a city with a comparatively large theatre community, and a genuine interest in it. While most of my prior theatre work was in Dublin and London, it was the other theatrical centres I used to frequent in Europe and different cultures that held most sway over my interests and drives. This background does mark me out somewhat (as does the accent). It is a constant influence on my work, bringing European and avant=garde sensibilities to each show I do.

That different background has it’s negative points. When I arrived here first, I did not have any network connections in the city. There is a strong link for people based on what high-schools they attended. I even knew a couple of theatre companies that appeared to be organized closely around where people went to school, rather than ability or other connections. It led to me ultimately setting up my own company with a fellow immigrant, and to being a more true freelancer than many locally.

That in itself led to a few of the different things I have become know for. I believe I am locally noted as being someone who knows his way around doing site-specific work, with me typically averaging one show in four in an actual theatre, I would hope that people note me for being someone who is hyper conscious of audience engagement. I believe that how engage the audience in a show – whether directly or indirectly – must be a conscious choice: theatre should not be Netflix in a different place, otherwise why would anyone want to bother? I am certainly one of the people working locally who works hardest to create intimate productions, which dovetails with the point about audience engagement – I will frequently cap audience numbers to ensure that they get a more personal experience, where I have full control of the show. And, while I don’t see this as major, I suspect that people know me first for adaptations of classic works, This arises from two important necessities: 1. Out of copyright works are cheaper, and 2. I can twist them to do interesting things when I don’t have anyone appraoching me to ensure that the integrity of the author’s original intention is not compromised.

The crisis has affected us all in different ways. How has it affected you and any important lessons or epiphanies you can share with us?

Covid-19 was a truly horrific moment for people everywhere, and it had a massive deleterious effect on the arts everywhere. But it was a paradigm moment too, and it was an opportunity too. Many local theatre people took it as an opportunity to change direction and to prioritize what was important to them. Many decided to cut back their involvement. Others quit completely. Some I knew took it as an opportunity to stop talking about doing it one day, and decided to throw themselves in whole-heartedly.

For me, I was able to use it to help me. I had fallen into the habit of working pretty constantly in theatre up to 2018. Different things led mr to slowing down in 2018, and then in the spring of 2019, our family moved to Finland for six months. It gave me an opportunity to think and reflect on a few things, but possibly not enough. When I came back, I managed to direct two shows in a couple of months before everything was shut down. I was unable to direct anything as everything was closed, and theatre is very much an in-person thing for me, I could not tell when things would be “back to normal” – if at all – so I couldn’t even plan my next move.

First I did everything like everyone else. I presented a short course on the history of Irish Theatre, I did some short explorations of Ancient Greek theatre too, and a weekly chat about Shakespeare. Then I did an online Bloomsday for June 16th, which was about 30 videos I needed to research, write, produce, and post in the first two weeks of June. I thoroughly enjoyed it and then collapsed, and spiralled for a couple of months. My bill paying job had collapsed with the theatre work and I was now fully useless, and while not hopeless, did not have any of my usual optimistic spark.

It was then that I went back to Ireland for a year, taking my kid with me as school there was being managed better than in the US. I walked endlessly, and read copiously. I started writing again. I wrote ten thousand words that never got finished, which has eventually led to me writing more about theatre, and writing short science fiction work too.

Most importantly, I really started to think about what was important, to me and to my family and to the world. It was a long and overdue process that only Covid could have faciliated without my guilt over failing to be productive strangling it. And I slowly regained the spark of belief in the world again.

What I realized was that the world needed to be different. If we came back and as soon as possible went ahead and pretended like nothing was different, we would be thumbing our noses at the millions who died. If we failed to take the opportunity to look for a change for the better, and and try to implement it, we would fail as artists. If we didn’t see the generosity of people, regardless of background, we would continue to be blind in our work. And we need to work within our communities to help them – in particular in my case, that is New Albany and Southern Indiana.

So that is what I came back with. First with the intention of restructing things to give more people opportunities to be artists – this is an ongoing process, but appears to be starting to yield fruit. I have also been conscious to try to do more of my work within my own community, and if nothing else, stage more work here, rather than crossing the river to do so. With that, I also work to produce work that can offer a better way forward for people, that could demonstrate that all is not lost. All of thise is by its nature an impossible ask, but it isn’t success but the effort that is important. I see a lot of people went straight back to what they were doing before, but I do see some who are trying to build a better and different world. I like to think I am among them.

Pricing:

• Rates for directing, writing, company development, and public speaking are on a job by job basis, and will be discussed in association with the client.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://medium.com/@martinfrench_58009
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/probablymartinfrench/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MartinFrenchTheatre
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/martin-french-theatre/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@martinfrench4890
• Other: https://bsky.app/profile/probablymartinf.bsky.social

Image Credits

All pictures by Martin French

Pic 1 – Marc McHone in Clash of the Woyzecks
Pic 2 – Kate Bariteau and Sassy Nuvelle in The Stronger Project
Pic 3 – Ensemble (Kaila Gelback, Hayley Ginger, Jason Jones, Susan Brooks, and Bryce Woodard) in The Tempest
Pic 4 – Kids who participated with the cast of The Tempest
Pic 5 – Michael Mina Guarneri in SoIN To Shakespeare Shorts
Pic 6 – Josh O’Brien and Jennifer Poliskie in SoIN To Shakespeare Shorts