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Ever since she took her first acting class at the Wilma Theater 13 years ago, Tina Brock has loved theater and its challenges. And she’s had many — as actor, playwright and director, too.
She’s now directing a rarely produced play by Tennessee Williams. Titled I Can’t Imagine Tomorrow, it opens tonight at the Triangle Theater. It’s half of a double bill of one-act plays by Williams that are being presented by Random Acts of Theater, the resident company of the Triangle Theater.
The play Brock is directing involves two people trying to communicate, she says. "It’s simply a conversation between the two of them. Each needs something very badly. But it’s their inability to communicate that’s the issue."
That may sound simple enough, but it presented unusual challenges for the Bella Vista director. "It’s abstract rather than specific," she says. "The audience doesn’t know where it takes place or even the names of the characters. It’s very free-floating and dependent on the director’s imagination."
Brock certainly had to call on her imagination in deciding how best to use the Triangle’s non-traditional theater space. The triangular red-brick building in Northern Liberties was a former factory, which then was converted into a private residence and artist studio with loft apartments.
But in October 2001, the building was acquired and renovated by Jane Stojak, a member of Random Acts of Theater. She and her partners transformed the first floor into the first professional live theater in the neighborhood. It’s a very large open space with brick walls and 60 moveable chairs, but no traditional stage as such.
"So we can be very flexible in many ways," says Brock, 44.
For this production, the "stage," an open space, will be on one side of the triangle. "And the seats will wrap around it," the director explains. "So the actors will be encircled by the audience."
As director, Brock has wide-ranging responsibilities.
"Directing is a huge challenge," she says, taking a break after several hours of rehearsal. Despite her busy day, she’s animated and energetic as she talks.
"You have to bring many skills to the table. You’re a psychologist, a teacher, a listener, interpreter. You have to understand the text and also what strengths and weaknesses the actors bring."
She worked with the actors during five weeks of rehearsals. Some rehearsal stints lasted almost until midnight, especially as the opening night drew closer.
But once the play opens tomorrow evening, Brock won’t even be able to watch the actors perform. The actors use the fourth floor of the building as their "backstage," and that’s where Brock will be while the show is in progress.
Whatever the inconveniences, she’s enjoying her run with the Triangle Theater and with Stojak. The two met in an acting class taught by George Di Cenzo, now the artistic director for Random Acts of Theater.
The first production in the Triangle was in September 2002, when the company participated in the Fringe Festival, and Brock directed one of the plays. Then she shifted roles to actor for productions in December and March. Now she’s back to directing.
The versatile theater veteran is also a playwright. Brock has written several short plays and monologues performed at the Brick Playhouse and at Triangle Theater workshops. And a full-length play, Idiopathic Ridiculopathy, was given a staged reading last month at the Adrienne Theater.
The title is unusual — and so is the theme. "It’s basically a sex farce about an infertile couple trying to have a baby, and the problems and absurdities they run into," explains Brock. "The more they try, the more crazy they become, because this issue overtakes your life. You start to feel it’s such an absurdity."
The playwright knows about the issue from personal experience. She and her husband Bill Brock had trouble conceiving for more than five years. They attended an infertility clinic at Pennsylvania Hospital, took all sorts of tests and Bill even underwent surgery.
Eventually, the difficult and often-frustrating experience had a happy outcome with the birth of son Liam, now 8-1/2.
Looking back on the challenge, Brock decided to use it as the theme for a play. And making it partly a farce came naturally to her. "I see so much of what we do in everyday life as flat-out absurd," she says.
The workshop reading last month went well. "The audience laughed a lot and responded very well," reports Brock. She also got encouragement from Seth Rozin, the artistic director of Interact Theater, who served as dramaturge — all-around consultant — for the piece.
Brock is still revising her play and hoping for a full stage production.
The director never envisioned a theater career when she was growing up in Warsaw, Ind. The closest she came to performing was as a baton-twirler in high school.
At West Chester University, Brock majored in speech communication and participated in debating team competitions.
When she graduated, her first job was at WHYY-TV, where she worked in development. Her boss, Willo Carey, picked up on her speaking skills and recruited her to be on camera for a station fundraiser.
"I was scared to death," she confesses. "But everyone encouraged me."
She did so well that she regularly appeared on camera for the fundraisers during her eight years at WHYY. She especially enjoyed interviewing the celebrity guests who came on the show, including Bill Moyers, John Tesh, Yanni, Peter, Paul and Mary; Andrew Weil and Deepak Chopra.
During that time, Brock took her first acting class at the Wilma, and that’s when she became keenly interested in theater. Two years later, when she left WHYY, she began taking acting roles in local theater companies. But to pay her bills, she also got an agent and started doing TV commercials. For several years, she traveled to New York three times a week for these gigs; she still does local TV commercials.
Her varied background also includes being a QVC pitchwoman. And she still appears on WHYY during the fundraisers.
But her main focus is the theater. And one of her big challenges is balancing her time, because she’s also a single mother. (She and her husband are amicably separated.) Her son Liam is already very much at home at the Triangle. "He often comes to the theater after school and will watch rehearsals," says Brock.
Their Bella Vista neighborhood is full of creative people. Next door to Brock is dancer Nicole Canuso and her fianc�, musician Michael Kiley. Down the street is dancer Amy Smith and her musician husband Richard Kaufmann. And Rozin of Interact Theater lives only two blocks away.
Brock says the aim of her own creative career is to reach others. "When people leave the theater and say, ‘I felt I was right there in the experience,’ that’s what we’re aiming for — to have our audience be participants and not just observers."
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Random Acts of Theater presents two one-act plays by Tennessee Williams starting tonight through June 15, Thursdays through Sundays, at the Triangle Theater, 1220 N. Lawrence St. (between Fourth and Fifth). Tickets are $20. For reservations, call 215-763-0110 or e-mail tickets@triangletheater.com.
