CHICAGO — Mon., March 20, was an easy day for director Gary Griffin. He didn't have to be anywhere until noon, when he would appear at the Cadillac Palace Theatre to announce the April 2007 opening of the Chicago company of The Color Purple, the Broadway musical he directed. By 1:30 p.m., he was at Chicago Shakespeare Theater on Navy Pier for a final rehearsal of the world premiere of David Ives' adaptation of Georges Feydeau's A Flea in Her Ear, opening that night at 7:30. He hardly broke a sweat.
For sweating isn't his style any more than flash is; figure him for thoughtful instead. Griffin has covered a great deal of territory in his 25-year career, from Chicago's Off-Loop to New York's Broadway to London's West End, yet he's never been a "star" director. He is, rather, that rare commodity: a journeyman who has slowly worked his way to the top. Rarer still, he's burned no bridges behind him, retaining posts as associate artistic director at Chicago Shakespeare and artistic consultant to the Drury Lane Theatre Water Tower Place, one of Chicago's newest commercial houses. Over the years, he has directed at the Apple Tree, Court, Live Bait, Northlight, Writers', and other theatres — for which he's won eight Joseph Jefferson Awards — in addition to Drury Lane and Chicago Shakespeare. But gradually Griffin is becoming a figure of national — even international — importance in the theatre world.
His New York debut came in 1999 when he directed Beautiful Thing, a British adolescent gay romance that he'd helmed at Chicago's Famous Door Theatre Company. After that he staged several productions for the Encores! series at City Center, including The New Moon, Pardon My English, and The Apple Tree, prior to directing The Color Purple on Broadway, a work that premiered at Atlanta's Alliance Theatre. Meanwhile, his Chicago Shakespeare appointment surprised many observers who identified Griffin with musicals and light drama. Sure enough, he inaugurated the theatre's musical wing with stunning productions of Pacific Overtures and A Little Night Music. Then, with his Chicago cast intact, Pacific Overtures was remounted at the Donmar Warehouse in London, copping three 2004 Olivier Awards, including outstanding musical.
"When you do a new musical, there are moments when you wonder, 'What is it today? Am I directing or just doing a lot of management?' " Griffin says. "And every director I've talked to who's done a new musical has had that reaction." With The Color Purple, he dealt with 16 producers and four co-authors, yet he serenely insists that creative logjams and personal conflicts just didn't happen: "You have to find the joy of working with that many people and being able to try to listen to everybody and at the same time stay focused on what you know. Our creative team had been together quite a bit, and we knew each other and we had a respect for each other. And the producers had one person that they funneled all their notes to so I didn't have to deal with them all. That was a really smart thing to do."
Not that The Color Purple's development was easy or short. A long hiatus that fell between the Atlanta premiere and the Broadway opening "taught us a lot about the versions of the show," he says. "We had a good meeting and talked a lot about what the values of story are. We believed we had a story that had a wide audience and was reflective of our voices together. We really developed together, over time, the things we felt passionate about. I see a lot of shows that go out of town and then come right in. That's when the pressure must be incredible. We had about nine months between Atlanta and starting previews in New York. We did a workshop, we had time to breathe and talk, and our new [ideas] didn't come out of a rush.
"Directing is largely opening conversations and being sure that this person is talking to this person, being sure that the choreographer is talking to the composer if there's an issue," Griffin says. "But you also have to be able to ask the right questions and learn. It's knowing how you interface with the choreographer and the choreography in a show so it doesn't look like he did that and I did that. You'd be surprised in our show what I did and what [choreographer] Donald Byrd did. It's not about territory. In the music as well, with all of my team, we just find language together."
In August, Griffin will stage a new musical, The Boys Are Coming Home, for the American Music Theatre Project at Northwestern University, followed by casting and rehearsals in Chicago for the first national company of The Color Purple. Then, in the summer of 2007, Kismet will take his talents to the English National Opera. Beyond those commitments, Griffin is quiet. "Here are the planes," he says. "We're going to see what will land."
He does allow, however, that he's interested in collaborating with scenic designers after having had rewarding experiences with Eugene Lee (A Moon for the Misbegotten, McCarter Theatre), John Lee Beatty (The Color Purple), and Daniel Ostling (A Flea in Her Ear). He's talking with composers, too: "Some of the early workshop process is about finding out if you work together well, because half of it is enjoying the time you spend in a room together with people. So I'm putting a lot of my time into meeting the people I want to work with. I have a long list."