We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Emily Shackelford a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Emily, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.
Early last year, I was asked to direct Music Theater Heritage’s production of “Little Women” (music by Jason Howland, lyrics by Mindi Dickstein, book by Allan Knee), and it has been an exciting journey preparing for this production. I always love assembling the design teams, the musicians, the performers, and this project was no exception; Every addition to the team felt like a huge win. All Kansas City local designers: Gabrielle Roney to Scenic Design, Daniella Toscano to Costume Design, Shelbi Arndt to Lighting Design, and Molly Denninghoff on board to play the lead, Jo – all women I admire and feel creatively inspired by. Pre-production was months of conversations, and my own journaling and marking down what concepts and visions felt right – or not right! Most of my process, in all art forms, is to give myself something to edit – just start, put something down. My desk gets full of loose post-it notes of drawings, of possible visual shapes, sketches of what the emotional journeys of the characters feel like to me. For Little Women, I knew we wanted to make an intimate piece of theater. Our space at MTH lends itself to that – It’s a small thrust theater- and we chose to use only a piano for accompaniment. Scenically, I knew we would want this piano as the center piece, and the rest of the stage to feel open, like a fresh page. “Little Women The Musical” is a memory play and a celebration of storytelling; it’s mobilizing powers, and its unique ability to immortalize the ones we’ve loved and lost. If you are unfamiliar with Louisa May Alcott’s “Little Women” – I’ll catch you up – set in Civil War Era America, the protagonist Jo, is an aspiring writer, searching for her place in the world, searching for something that gives her significance within our patriarchal culture that exists to strip her of significance. In the musical, we clip through iconic scenes from Jo’s memory, and it’s all leading to the moment she decides, or realizes, that her personal experiences from girlhood are worth writing about. And so, I wanted to visually represent this expectant feeling, the swirling experience of memories and scenes floating in and out of mind, how it feels to have an idea – Gabby and I, and our technical team, have come up with a physical way for this to manifest on stage – and you’ll have to come see the show to see its effect! Daniella’s beautiful costume design is an abstracted take on the era-appropriate wardrobe, a memory of the silhouettes. I wanted our simplified instrumentation (just piano) to inform the other design elements. Let the whole piece feel abstracted, stripped down and structural, and in this way we’ll get closer to the heart of it. I wanted to see the cage of the hoop skirts, the bones of the corset – to me it evokes the oppressive, constricting experience of fitting ourselves into extreme gender expectations. All of this pre-planning was very fun and hypothetical. Now that we are in rehearsals, things are getting practical: we’re putting these scenes on their feet, singing the songs live in the room, discovering staging together, it’s a whole new level of fun and experimentation. It has been so rewarding to build this production, to reanimate these well known scenes and characters, to try our rendition of this musical – rewarding because of its message of hope. I love spending my time in this mindset; it’s very healing and empowering to meditate creatively on these themes.
“Little Women” runs February 13th to March 2nd at Music Theater Heritage! Please visit mthkc.com to purchase tickets.
Emily, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
Sure! I am a multi-media artist; Lately I work mostly as a theater director, but I also make visual art, music, photography – I have a lot of interests – and I think directing theater is nice culmination of all of them. I still love performing – much of the last decade I worked as a performer in regional theater (The Kansas City Repertory Theater, Portland Center Stage, DC Arena Stage, Baltimore Center Stage, Syracuse Stage, and The New Victory Theater (Off Broadway). My experiences as a performer in these spaces has definitely shaped who I am as a theater artist; I try to emulate my favorite director’s ability to trust their instincts, and to filter all the ideas in the room into something cohesive and effective. I think making collaborate art is one of the most rewarding endeavors, and I feel so grateful to spend my time developing creative ideas with people.
What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?
The most rewarding aspect of being an artist, is the people it brings into my life. Especially with collaborative art making. The way these processes bring me closer to others, the way it allows me to experience how other minds work, it’s an intimate exchange that ever propels my understanding of myself and the world around me!
How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?
How to best support artists? Well obviously any financial support is crucial, and helping spread the word through social media. If you have the capacity to produce or commission then please lift artists up and offer opportunities to fund new work when you can, etc etc- but also: engage with their creations – go to their shows, listen to the music, attend the readings, go to the screenings, visit in person when they invite you to engage with the art – and then keep the conversation going – let the work influence you to respond in your own artistic way, however you might express yourself. One of the most encouraging things to me, as an artist, is when I see that what I’ve made has inspired an artistic reaction. Every piece of art in the world is in conversation with each other, and in these bleak times, we need to keep this conversation going. Believe that artmaking is needed; believe in art’s important power to heal and inspire empathy. Shift the cultural value of art. Easy, right?
So – an easy way to support artists in Kansas City? Come see “Little Women” at Music Theater Heritage! All the performers, designers, musicians, technicians, artisans: all Kansas City artists. Seeing the show is a direct way to support them/us. We would love to see you there!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://emilyshackelford.com
- Instagram: @emilyareti
- Other: https://musictheaterheritage.com/project/little-women
Image Credits
Vaughan Harrison
Cory Weaver
Emily Shackelford
Madoka Koguchi