Final Bow
Remembering Zelda Fichandler
Since the passing of Zelda Fichandler on July 29 there has been an outpouring of personal tributes from artists, audiences, and administrators. Here are just a few reminiscences from those who worked with her - and were inspired by her work: BETH HAUPTLE, BILL LARGESS & JENNIFER NELSON.
BETH HAUPTLE (Director of Marketing and Communications, Baltimore Center Stage)
Zelda Fichandler was my rock star idol. Her vision inspired an entire movement and, at the same time, inspired generations of theater artists and administrators. She captured the spirit of the time: Regional. Resident. Acting Company. Non-traditional casting. Diverse writers. Theater in the round. Woman led.
A few weeks after moving to DC in 1984, I took a long-anticipated drive past Arena Stage as one might take past the White House. “Wow! There it is. I’m going to work there one day.” And three years later I did.
In the short time I was there I worked with the amazing Arena Stage acting company, world-class directors, and my favorite playwright of all time, August Wilson. As a young, awestruck theater marketer, I had discovered a pot of gold.
So with this background, allow me to share my two most vivid memories of Zelda.
After the departure of our department head at Arena Stage, Zelda visited our weekly PR and Marketing meetings. She asked each of us what our goals were and what we were hoping to contribute. One of my colleagues said she wanted to continue to learn. Zelda turned to her and in her inimitable style said, “Dear, if you want to learn you should go to school. You have a job to do here.” Needless to say, when it was my turn, I said that my goal was “to get as much press for Arena Stage as possible, ma’am, Zelda.” She nodded in appreciation.
But my most vibrant memory came when I was looking for key moments to photograph in Zelda’s stunning production of The Crucible—in the round, of course. I walked around the four sides of the theater during a rehearsal and discovered that no matter which side I viewed the performance from, Zelda had composed a beautiful stage picture that precisely communicated what was going on in the play. Each side showed a different perspective, but each moment was perfectly composed. I was overwhelmed as to how I was going to choose the press shots, since it was all perfect. Zelda knew her arena and she was a genius in using it.
Thank you, Zelda. Your brilliance influenced the lives of everyone who had the privilege of working with you. Even as we did our jobs, we continued to learn. In your presence, we couldn’t help it.
BILL LARGESS (Artistic Director, Washington Stage Guild)
For those of us who grew up in Washington as Arena Stage came into its maturity, it's impossible to overstate what it meant to have this superb theatre producing masterful, challenging work so reliably. As a child riding past the Heurich Brewery and then the “new” theatre in Southwest, then as a high school student being dazzled by shows there, I had only the vaguest idea who Zelda and Tom were. But as a freshman at Catholic U's Drama Department, where Arena rehearsed the rep of plays they would take to Moscow, I was introduced to her by Father Hartke, for whom I was one of “the local kids,” a DC resident.
I don't remember much of what we said (by now I knew who she was, and was fairly intimidated), but I do remember that she wanted to know what I'd seen at Arena and what I'd thought of it. Looking back, that seemed generous and maybe even a little Socratic, since it was hard to believe she cared what a teenaged drama student had thought of her company's work. Over the years I remember so many of her productions, the power and the searing truth of them. Her Three Sisters at Arena is so vivid in my memory I feel as if I can recall every beat.
I never worked directly with Zelda but encountered her several times as dramaturg and then artistic director of the Washington Stage Guild. She came to our shows when any of her NYU students worked with us, most notably a performance of Oni Faida Lampley's Mixed Babies, where she had a coughing fit and came out to the lobby for a cough drop. I caught her up on what she'd missed before she headed back in, and afterwards she thanked me for the cough drop and the update!
The last time I saw her was at Paula Gruskiewicz' memorial evening at Theater J, where we both shared our memories of Paula. I mentioned Paula as Masha in The Seagull at CUA, and after the program, Zelda came over to me and said she's wished she'd seen Paula in that. I almost reminded her that we'd first met at Catholic back in the ‘70s, but somehow or other, didn't get around to it. But I did tell her that the Stage Guild now performed in the Undercroft Theatre, where she had worked with The Mt. Vernon Players before founding Arena. She smiled and said, “You're kidding.” And when I told her I wasn't she shook her head and said, “We were so young.” I'm sure she meant her colleagues back then, but I'd like to think she also meant us, her and me, back at Catholic U.
The seriousness with which she addressed a young student, the attention she paid to her former students' work, and the relish with which she pictured a lost colleague's long-past work all speak volumes not just to what kind of artist she was, or what kind of teacher. It says even more about who she was as a person. A person to whom Washington audiences, and audiences across the country, owe an unpayable debt.
JENNIFER NELSON (Resident Director, Mosaic Theater Company of DC)
How Zelda Fichandler helped make me me.
It was 1972, a time of great social upheaval in America. I was living in San Francisco, disillusioned about theatre when what I wanted was to change the world. I stumbled upon a flyer about the Living Stage (LSTC), the community outreach program of Arena Stage. A phone call led to an audition and I ended up in Washington working under Zelda’s umbrella.
Besides LSTC, working at Arena was like a Master Class in taking work from page to stage. Zelda’s aesthetic vision was deeply attuned to the in-the-round format, giving her productions such elegance and grace that one felt lifted out of temporal reality. From the Lower Depths to the Chalk Circle to Illyria to the center of a Tempest; from Shakespeare to Miller to Kaufman and Hart; Chekhov to Gorky—Zelda’s work was a veritable map of the theatrical universe. She also introduced us to a panoply of daring Eastern European directors who pushed Arena to further fantastical heights. I will particularly never forget watching Tartuffe ascend out of sight in a helicopter!
Many years passed, we both moved on and only occasionally crossed paths. Then miraculously, she called me. She had seen my production of The Whipping Man at Theater J; I wept as she praised my work! It was one of the most personally important conversations I have ever had: like a blessing from the Queen.
Theatre now has a healthy representation in almost every major American city. All of those theatres owe a debt of gratitude to our Zelda for her fortitude, intelligence, determination, creative vision and passion for living, breathing art.
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