It has been a busy time for Lindsey Ruzza, Dara Pohl Feldman and Rebecca Brill Weiz–all theater majors from the Class of 2018. In the four months since their commencement, they have started the New York City-based Ruthless Nightingale Theater Company and produced Ruzza’s “In the Spotlight” at the Loft at the Davenport Theatre, an Off-Broadway house, under the company’s banner. Ruzza and Pohl Feldman co-founded the company and serve as co-artistic directors; Brill Weiz is the general manager.
The name Ruthless Nightingale is meant to emphasize the risks that the company hopes to take by producing new and interesting works of theater. Pohl Feldman notes the Nightingale is a symbol that never has been neutral. It always has been used to represent polar opposites like “love and hate” or “death and life.” “It’s going to sound really pretentious,” said Pohl Feldman. “But I hope that [Ruthless Nightingale] begins to serve the theater industry. I hope that it begins to go somewhere different.”
From a business standpoint, Ruthless Nightingale will be supporting productions that more conservative producers would likely shun. Describing the freedom they hope to give to theater-makers, Pohl Feldman explains: “A production might fail, and fall flat on its face, but I don’t want anyone to ever say that it failed because it didn’t try hard enough, or it didn’t take the risk that it wanted to take; that it was safe. I hope [Ruthless Nightingale] serves the type of people who are looking for that right now.”
The production process for “In the Spotlight,” which previously received two performances during Conn’s May 2018 Theater Capstone Festival, was rather hasty. The company found out it had received a space grant at the Loft only six weeks prior to the performances. It was forced to hastily assemble a cast and crew that included former and current Conn students: Lizzy Moreno ‘18, who was reprising her role from the production at Conn, and Carly Sponzo ‘21, who designed costumes. The company also recruited involvement from contacts the three had made during their time as interns at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center in Waterford, CT. A fundraiser helped the company afford costs for technical staff and actors. The producers were particularly proud that they were able to pay their actors as many similar companies in the industry often do not do so.
Brill Weiz describes the process of learning to produce an off-Broadway show on the job as “all the same things you do in school. It’s like a Wig & Candle show, but in the real-world. The concepts are all transferable. It’s all of that stuff that we learned working on shows at school just bigger and more expensive.”
“In the Spotlight” deals with the culture of abuse in the theater industry. Ruzza was inspired to write it after reading an article about the mental, physical, and sexual abuse perpetrated by the artistic director of the Profiles Theater in Chicago. Although she began work on it prior to the rise of the #MeToo Movement in October of last year, she acknowledges that there may have been some subconscious influence from it and the events surrounding it. She also notes that the work’s connotations with the movement is an association she expects her audiences will make.
Ruzza describes the play’s audience and message as follows: “‘To me ‘In the Spotlight’ serves the young [20-something] actor, who is starting out and realizing that there are sacrifices to be made but there are lines to be drawn. I think all too often actors are asked to make personal sacrifices for the arts, and I think all too often actors are thought of as disposable….I hope that if nothing else ‘In the Spotlight’ tells this young actor that walks into a theater and thinks that he/she/they has to do something that puts them in danger be it emotional, physical, mental, whatever and/or makes them uncomfortable in any sort of way. I want them to realize that first they have a choice….I suppose that ‘In the Spotlight’ is for the artist, but I hope that it speaks to more than the artist.”
Ruzza, Pohl Feldman and Brill Weiz are already working on Ruthless Nightingale’s next project. In June Ruthless Nightingale put out a call for 20-30 minute plays to be considered for a new work festival, a production that has yet to come to fruition. While the company has not yet formally announced any future productions, it appears that Ruthless Nightingale has so far gotten off to a good start. •
