HILLERY RINK: Today is August the 23rd, 2013. We're at Georgia State
Special Collections and Research Library in Atlanta, Georgia. My name is Hillery Rink, and I'm doing an oral history interview with Rachel May. And Rachel, welcome. If you can just start out, so we have sort of all the demographic stuff at the beginning, if you can just state your name, where you were born, your age, just sort of some identifying information, and where you live now.RACHEL MAY: Sure. My name is Rachel Ann Hayes-May, and I was born in -- on
November 22nd, 1971, in Beverly, Massachusetts. I grew up in Manchester-by-the-Sea, which is about five minutes from there. And I moved to Georgia in 1993. And I live in Decatur. 00:01:00RINK: OK, great. We're going to start off, I want to get a little bit of
background on your family. Both your mom's side and your dad's side. And some people know a lot about their family history, some don't. So, we don't have to go into tons of detail, but it does help sort of round out the story. If you could just give a little bit of background on your parents, and if you know their ethnic backgrounds, how long they've been in the US, and any type of information about either side of the family that might be interesting or helpful.MAY: Yeah, I'll try to keep it really brief, because it's very interesting.
But so, I'm first generation American on my mom's side. My mom was born in Montenegro, in Yugoslavia, what was once Yugoslavia. And her father was Jewish, my grandfather was Jewish, and my grandmother was Catholic. And that was sort of unheard of at the time, and when my mom -- she was born in '41, so when she 00:02:00was about four, I think, three or four, he was taken to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where he spent, it's a little unclear, but about a year. He survived.RINK: Your grandfather?
MAY: My grandfather, sorry. Her father. My grandmother, in the meantime, because
she was Catholic, I guess, was not taken. So she had my mom and her little brother. And she sort of kept them alive. And went to the Gestapo every single day and demanded to know where her husband was, and every day they sent her home and said, "Go home or we're going to arrest you." And she went back the next day. She is 100 and a half, almost 101 now. And is still the same battle ax. This is my grandmother, Gertrude Russo. And so, anyway, so the war ended, the camps were liberated, my grandfather was still just barely alive. And just a tiny tidbit. When the door was kicked in to the infirmary where he was, and it 00:03:00was the soldiers who were liberating the camp, he looked up, and one of the soldiers was a man that he had grown up with. Like, on the same street in his little town, and it was one of those sort of amazing events in the world that don't make any sense unless you believe in this sort of connectedness. So anyway, he got out. He found them, they went and lived in Israel for a year, and then they went to Montreal, and he converted to Catholicism, I think to protect his family. And my mom grew up there. She went to McGill for dental school. My father, I'll tell you his story in a minute, but was at McGill, doing his final years of medical school. And they met, and she was very perky, long blonde haired, only woman in the dental school, and he thought she was awfully cute, and he brought her back to the States. So that's how they came together. My dad is actually from, is very American, he's from Lexington, Mass. You know, the heart of the Revolution. And his parents, his mom was actually from 00:04:00Scotland. Loch Lomond, Scotland, I believe. So she was first generation. Or he was first generation American. His dad, I never met. He died before I was born, but I think he was just from the States, I don't know his history as well. So, yeah. That's where they all are from.RINK: So, your parents met at McGill, then. And did they get married in Canada?
Or did they come to the US to get married?MAY: No. That's a good question. I don't know where they got married. I've
seen the pictures, but I'm not sure I'd -- they might have gotten married in Montreal, that's a good question, I'll have to ask. I don't know. And then my dad was finishing -- part of how he paid for school, medical school, was through the Navy, and so it was then, you know, early -- late '60s, and Vietnam War was happening, and he received his papers of where he was being sent, and he came home and said to my mom, "I'm going to Vietnam," because 00:05:00it was such and such beach. And then he looked further and found out it was Hawaii. So he -- my dad bears a lot of guilt around that actually. But he did, you know, he was one of the doctors in Hawaii who was taking care of the families and the soldiers who were coming back. And so, he and my mom lived there for a couple of years. My older sister was born there. And yeah, so that's where they sort of got their start. So he learned to surf then. [laughter]RINK: So then what took them to Massachusetts?
MAY: I think that's because where my dad was from. I think that's why they
came back to there. We had family there, and his brothers were there, and I don't know why they didn't go back to Canada. I mean I guess once they were in the States, they just wanted to -- you know, my mom wanted to stay in the States. So, he just went back to where his family was.RINK: OK. So then, talk about your immediate family. You said sister, how many
brothers, how many sisters, etc.MAY: Also a complicated story. So, my dad and my mom had my older sister,
00:06:00Jessica, and I. And then they divorced when I was a year and a half. And then my dad and my stepmother Nancy got married when I was four. And when I was nine, they had twin daughters. My little sisters, who are Vanessa and Leah. Who I guess are technically my half-sisters, but we don't go by that. So, I'm sort of the youngest of my mom's and the middle of my dad's kids. And yeah, and so my mom has been with her partner, husband, person, since I was in college, so 23 years or something.RINK: And talk about growing up, were you mainly with one parent versus the
other? Did you go back and forth?MAY: My parents, if you have to get divorced, which I hate, and is horrible, I
think they did it as best you possibly can. They were always extremely civil with each other, and ultimately, became good friends again. My stepmother and my 00:07:00mom were very friendly, and my dad and my stepmother divorced when I was -- 25 years into their marriage, so -- but we're still close with her, and so, they were always very close. We lived with my mom full-time, but my dad was always within a half an hour of us, and we were there on the weekends or, you know, we were there part of every week, so we've always been very close with both parents, even though they've been split, you know, at any -- my little sister just had her first baby, and at the birth was my older sister was the doula, my dad was there with his girlfriend, partner, Bonnie, my stepmother Nancy was there with her partner, you know, I mean so everybody was there, and my mom was all in the mix, and they were all sort of -- my little sister's call my mom their stepmom. Which doesn't make any sense, but they're close with her too, so it's sort of a mishmash, but -- which when my husband I met, Daniel comes from a -- people who have been married for 40 years, and a very specific church 00:08:00community, and my family was startling to him, to say the least, we were Northerners, and we were loud, and we were Yugoslavs, and we were, you know, there was just so much. And then there's all the -- now which parent is this? And our kids now, they're like, so who -- is Grampy with Bonnie, and then Nana's with Ken, and then like, so it's sort of complicated to help people figure it out when they're new to it, so.RINK: Talk about your siblings growing up. Were you close? Did you do a lot
together? Did you tend to be loners?MAY: Yeah, that's a good question. My sister, my older sister Jess, you know,
we were together all the time, so she'll probably contest this, but she didn't like me a whole lot when we were growing up. We think later, she sort of figured out that I came along just before the split happened with my parents, so I think in her little kid brain, there was some attachment to I came, and then they split. So we were close, we played together all the time and stuff, but I think there was a little bit of a reserve for her, in terms of that. but 00:09:00as adults, I mean we're super, super close. And my little sisters, because they were, you know, again, Jessie's 10 years older than then, 11 years older than them, and I'm nine years older. So, you know, there's a little bit of a division there, and they always say that we formed them, you know, we were their cool influences. You know, we were in high school when they were five or six. And, you know. So, but we're also very, very close now, all the four of us. We were actually all just in Martha's Vineyard together. And had a really great time. So there's a lot of closeness, even though it's again, sort of a strange pathway to get there.RINK: Talk a little bit about growing up, school, did you go to public school,
private school? Did you like school?MAY: Oh yeah. I was --
RINK: Talk a little bit about your childhood.
MAY: Yeah. So I grew up in this little tiny town called Manchester-by-the-Sea.
And it's exactly what you would imagine, it's a New England post card, there's like a little white church with a steeple in the center of town, on a little green, and then there's boats in the harbor, and it's 6,000 people, 00:10:00roughly. Everybody knows everyone. You go to school with the same people from kindergarten through 12th grade. It's a beautiful -- like I was up there a few weeks ago, and my mom said at one moment, we were sitting outside in this beautiful late afternoon sun, and watching this band play, and the whole town was just sort of sitting there, and the water's right there, and my mom said, you know, this is a marvelous town. And I thought, you know, that's exactly right. It's a marvelous town. We -- it's got all the little small town things where everybody knows everybody, but it's safe, and I mean, my mother still to this day never locks her door, she never locks her car anywhere. She -- my sister and her both still live in that town. I mean, was -- I loved school, in answer to that question, I'm a huge school nerd. So I loved going to school, I've always loved being engaged in things. And the school is -- it was all public school, but it's such a tiny school system, and such a sort of elite kind of a place, that I mean, really, the education we got is more like 00:11:00what we would imagine as a private school experience. There's not a lot of -- the only problem with Manchester is there's not a lot of difference. You know, everybody's pretty similar. My family was sort of different because we weren't kind of like, WASP and, you know, being handed a BMW when you're 16, and all that. There was a lot of that, it was very wealthy, sort of old money, New England kind of place. But there's so much civic engagement, I mean people just care about each other. And my group of friends in high school, I sort of, I was always sort of different in terms of being an artist, and not being the mainstream and wanting to be the popular kids. I just eschewed all of that. And so, when I found this group of friends who wore all black and carried sketchbooks and, you know, we were sort of the anti-popular kids, we would hang 00:12:00out, and listen to Pink Floyd, and you know, walk to the beach at three o'clock in the morning, blowing bubbles, and the cops would stop us, and be like, are you drinking? And we're like, "We don't drink." You know, so it was great. It's a great town to grow up in, because you can -- you're really safe, and there's, I mean, I can't tell you of a crime that's ever been committed. I mean surely there's been some, but so, my mom felt really safe knowing that her daughter was hanging out in so and so's house, and they were, you know, we were sitting and watching movies, and eating popcorn, and so it's a really lovely place in that way. And I love going back there, because it's so small town Americana, and you wave at everybody because you know them all. So it's nice.RINK: Now you mentioned that your family and you weren't like everyone else
there. When did you start to notice that you were different? Because you said there's not a lot of difference there.MAY: Right.
RINK: But you realized that you and your family were.
MAY: Right.
RINK: When did that start to dawn on you?
MAY: That's a great question. I mean, I don't know. My mom, my mom is this
00:13:00great, crazy, quirky person, and she's always had that presence. I mean, she's a dentist, and so, you know, a lot of people -- and she was involved in a lot of, you know, committees and stuff in the town, and so people always knew her, and she was a single parent, and she built this big, crazy, modern house that sort of was up over the town, so you could sort of see it from a lot of places. So, I don't know, I mean I remember in, I don't know how early, fifth, sixth, seventh grade, I don't know, people started -- you know, they would always be joking about your crazy mother. Like in the loving way. Your mom's so wacky, she's -- you know, there was a story that circulated at one point that they could see -- kids down below in town could look up with the binoculars and she was nude sunbathing. And my mom's a little bohemian and stuff, and I'm sure it was -- I mean I've seen her nude sunbathing a thousand times, so, you know, so there was -- so I don't know. I mean it never felt like oh, they're strange. But definitely quirkier than a lot of people.RINK: So did you get any type of, I don't know, being picked on by being
different? Or was it people respected the difference? 00:14:00MAY: I got picked on for many other reasons. I think the difference I felt was
the whole like, theater and arts thing. Because that just wasn't -- now they have this, like they just built a new school, and there's this huge theater, and it's this huge program. But at the time, that was not really done. I mean it was a pretty jock-heavy school. And we, you know, the friends that I was, you know, the people I sort of got to be friends with, they were definitely outsiders. But we took pride in that, you know, by that point, which was eighth grade, ninth grade, we took pride in that. Just before that, I was, yeah, I was teased a lot, I don't know why that happened. We had one of those kids who was sort of the king of our grade, and he decided early on, like in fifth grade or something, it's so funny even thinking about this stuff. But he decided early on that for some reason, I was someone he was going to mock, and so I became that for a while for him. I had a friend who was sort of heavyset, and I was 00:15:00very flat-chested, and so he used to -- we'd walk into a classroom, and he'd say, "Look, fat and flat, together again." You know, he was one of those people who just thought it was really funny to torture people, so that went on for a little while, like six, seventh grade, and then I feel like I sort of got saved by theater. And this group of friends who were artists, because it gave me an identity that was separate from that. Because before that, I just felt like oh my gosh, I'm not a part of this, and I'm mocked, and I'm whatever. But having this group of friends, who I loved, and who were very, I felt, substantial people. Whereas these other people did not feel so substantial to me, they felt very surface, and they wanted to drink, and they wanted to be stupid, in my opinion. So I really feel like theater gave me a home, and a place. And people who were in that group were all sort of quirky and different. So that didn't matter.RINK: I want to follow up on that, but I just have a quick aside. Do you know
what happened to that guy? Have you seen him?MAY: Oh, Kurt? Yeah, yeah.
RINK: At a reunion or anything? Is he --
MAY: Oh yeah, yeah. Actually my crowning glory, and I don't know how racy
00:16:00I'm allowed to get on this thing, but --RINK: As you want.
MAY: -- my crowning glory was like, we actually got to be sort of friends again,
like, you know, junior year or something, and then senior year we went out on a date or two, and it pleased me that he was begging me to have a nice evening with him, and I was like, you know, no. No, that's OK. So it was kind of like, woo-hoo. But yeah, actually we're Facebook friends now, and I've seen him at reunions and stuff. And he's a, you know, he seems like a good guy. And he's said, you know, I was an asshole. I was totally an asshole. And we're like, yeah, you pretty much were. You know, so he's realized the error of his ways.RINK: Now, you've hit on theater several times. And how that was where you
felt you were a part of something. When did you first start thinking about theater? What prompted your initial interest? How old were you? And sort of talk to me about how that seed started with you. 00:17:00MAY: Yeah. We were I think coming from Europe, my family's got a lot of
classical music in them, and my step-- my grandfather was a violinist in addition to being an engineer, and my stepmother is a violinist. And so, classical music and sort of culture, and all of that, was just in our lives from the beginning. And New England's a really different place. I mean, where we grew up, like class trips, we went to the symphony, we went to -- I mean, we did this stuff all the time. My father in particular is very -- he's a huge theater lover, and so he was taking, I remember going to see shows at ART, which is -- yeah, American Repertory Theater, in Boston. Which is the sort of premier theater in Boston, and nationally known. And I mean, I remember watching Six Characters in Search of an Author, by Pirandello, when I was 13. And there's this moment where it's these characters who come in, and they're trying to -- they want to be real people, so they come into this rehearsal, who's rehearsing this play, but they're saying they're the characters, but 00:18:00they're trying to be real. So everything's is it real, is it not real? And there's a little girl, and a real little girl actor, and she's playing in a sort of play pool while some other action's going on, and all of the sudden you see someone scream, and they run over, and you've sort of had your attention diverted, and the little girl is lying there soaking wet, really soaking wet, and she's drowned, they've picked her up. So, she was playing in this pretend pool, but somehow she drowned. And I remember at 13, watching this and just being kind of really riveted by the power of the theatricality of it. And so, I saw theater a lot, there's also the Gloucester Stage Company, which is right around the corner from where I grew up, Israel Horovitz, who's again, a nationally known playwright, wrote all his plays there, and so my mom had a subscription, and we went to see there. So my parents really infused that in me. But then, and I started taking dance really early, I loved -- I hated ballet, I took one day of ballet. Ballet was not for me. [laughter] I'm not a hit the pose kind of person, I'm a transitions kind of person. So, I did jazz, I did tap. Later, in college, I did modern, which is really sort of where my 00:19:00spirit lies, in terms of dance. And so I did a lot of dance, and that was great. And then, there's this amazing program that used to be in Manchester called Summer Show, and these people started it a long, long time ago, and every summer, they get kids age 12 to 21 for the whole summer, and you rehearse every night for the entire summer. So it's really intense, and they put on this really high-power, professional looking musical every year. And some of these theater geeks that I'd gotten to be pals with did tech for Summer Show. And so they invited me in, and I did a little tech, and then I auditioned, and I got into my first show. And I'd have to think, I know you're probably going to wonder which was the first show, but I'm not sure I can remember right now. But anyway, so I did Summer Show for many years. And that was again, like that was --RINK: And this is high school, college?
00:20:00MAY: No, I started when I was 12. Like 12, 13. So it was that -- yeah, it -- and
they, it's alive now, but a different program. But what it was, was it was 12 to 21 year olds. And it was the whole summer. And that was, I mean, that was the other part of my family, you know, was the Summer Show family. And we all still are very much connected and in, you know, conversation a lot. So, I had -- yeah, so I think -- and then I started taking theater classes in high school, like when I got to high school. That's when I sort of formally started doing it.RINK: And I assume you did high school theater productions?
MAY: I did. And again, it was really tiny, our high school drama -- I mean, our
school was just very arts-friendly. Like in elementary school, there was a -- we put on an operetta every year, we'd put on a Gilbert and Sullivan every year. So, you know, I'd started doing those, I mean whenever that is, fourth grade, fifth grade or something, and -- but our high school drama teacher was totally in love with Noel Coward, so we just kept doing Noel Coward over and over again. And so, I did a lot of Noel Coward, which was fun. But yeah, the first time I 00:21:00did a scene, because I'd been doing tech, and the first time I did a scene, I came off the stage and my drama teacher said, you know, maybe you should stick to doing lighting. And I was like, that's -- now looking back, I'm like, that's the worst. And then of course I became one of his star actors. You know, but I was like, that's the worst thing that he could have said to me. The first time I tried it, as a teacher, that's horrifying that he did that, so. And I also, speaking of that, I also started teaching really early. Like, in high school, my daughter the other day was asking, what was your first job? And I waited tables, and I babysat, but I also started teaching at theater camps really early. I mean I was probably 15 the first time I was a junior counselor at a camp. And so, I've always, always, always taught.RINK: And what did teaching at that age involve? What were you teaching?
MAY: Theater games, and theater exercises, and helping put on plays with kids.
Like at summer camps, or after school programs. Things like that. So, I mean I'm actually starting a class this afternoon using, I'm sure, many of the 00:22:00same things that, you know, I started doing back then.RINK: So, where in this process did it occur to you, hey maybe this is where my
life is going? Or this may be a career? Or at this point, had you not even broached that thought?MAY: You know, there's one other influence I meant to say to you, which is
that my older sister Jess was a ridiculously good student, particularly in math and those areas. And so, I mean, she was like a straight A. And being in a small school, every teacher I had, had had my sister two years earlier. And every single teacher, again, teachers should never, ever do this to anyone, I would walk in on the first day and they'd say, "Oh you're Jessica Hayes's sister, well we expect really great things of you." Which was a nightmare, frankly. And so, my sister never did anything arts-related. She did -- we both played an instrument. I played violin, she played cello. But she never did theater, she never -- I think it was like the only area that she hadn't done, 00:23:00she was a cross-country runner, she was -- so I think probably, I think part of it is that you're called to it, quite frankly. I don't think you just sort of decide, I'm going to do theater with my life. I think you feel a call to it. But I think also the fact that I could go there and be my own person that Jessie had not been there before me, was probably a really big draw as well. So, I'm not sure I ever thought that there would be something else, quite frankly. I mean, I have always taught in some way or another, but it's always been teaching theater. So to me, that's all theater. But I can't tell you I ever thought about another career, ever. I've always loved science, biology, and all of that. Psychology. But that also plays a lot into the other things that I do. So I'm interested in the environment, and some of that. But yeah, I think I just knew I was headed this way.RINK: So, once you graduated high school, I know you went to Drew University in
New Jersey. How did you choose to go there? What other colleges did you think about? 00:24:00MAY: Yeah, my dad, when I was looking at colleges, my dad said, "You know, I
had a girlfriend at Drew once, and I remember going to visit, and it was a really pretty campus, you should go look at it." That's how I went to Drew. So, gosh, I looked at a lot of small liberal arts with no -- my requirements were under about 2,000 people, and no football. [laughter] And no Greek. That was, I mean those were really things that mattered to me. I didn't want to be in that environment, at that point in my life I didn't drink at all. And I did -- I just couldn't stand that whole culture, and that was a lot of my high school experience that I saw, and I just wanted -- I wanted to have a meaningful college experience that didn't have anything to do with that. So, I looked at Drew, I looked at Swarthmore, I looked at Bard, I looked at Sarah Lawrence, I looked at, you know, sort of all the schools in that kind of ilk. I had the wonderful good fortune that my dad was going to pay for college, so I was pretty 00:25:00open in my choices to what I could look at. Which is an amazing gift. But Drew felt right, it just felt right. They called it the little university in the forest, and it's got an arboretum on campus, and it's like, at that point it was like 1,200 people. And they had a pretty good theater program, and it's right next to New York, so it has that access to seeing things in the city, and so, it just felt like a good change from my tiny little high school, I didn't want to go gigantic, because my class had 60 kids in it in high school so, you know, it was 1,200 for the school was a jump for me.RINK: And how did Drew live up to your expectations?
MAY: Drew was great, it was great. It was a really lovely place. You know,
it's funny, it's like now, I think I got so much out of college, I took six classes per semester, I was always doing shows, you know, I did as much as I could time-wise. Looking back, I think I didn't know as much about sort of trying to connect outside the school, in terms of making like, future plans. I don't think, for someone who's a producer, and is like, a huge planner every 00:26:00minute of my life, I never really thought like, OK, what's my five-year plan from a sort of career perspective. And I'm not sure that was introduced to me, and maybe that was good to not have that pressure on my brain. But I probably could have done a little more in terms of like, going into the city and doing an internship, and that kind of stuff. But, Drew was wonderful. I met, you know, made really good friends and I worked a lot, and I directed, and that's when I discovered directing. I started out in high school, I'd done a lot of visual art painting, fine art painting, as well as my theater stuff. And I sort of was headed toward being a scenic designer, I thought. And I started doing that at Drew, and then I took a directing class, and I went this is what I need to do. And I had acted too, and I'm just much better being someone who sort of sees the big picture, and brings lots of divergent and wonderful ideas toward a unified vision, that's really, I think, my gift. And so, I realized pretty 00:27:00quickly that being one piece of that was not really for me. So that's when I sort of got on the path of directing. So, Drew was great. And the thing that was amazing about Drew at that time, it was one of the only schools at that time that gave everyone a computer, and had an intranet on the campus. So I feel like my sort of technology savvy started at that point. [laughter] My first laptop was like, you know, 30 pounds or something. But they also had a really robust travel abroad program. And so I went, and I spent a semester in London, and then traveled for two months by myself around -- all around Europe. And, you know, I think about that now, having a daughter, and I think what a pivotal experience that was in my life, in terms of feeling confident in who I was, and my ability to -- and this was pre-internet, this is pre-cell phones. I mean my family --RINK: What year are we talking?
MAY: I went -- '92, I graduated in '93, so '92 was when I spent a semester
00:28:00abroad, so the spring of '92. So like January, I went over there, and I think in May, April -- May, June, April, May, somewhere in there, the semester ended, and I went and traveled. And --RINK: So you're basically 20 years old?
MAY: Yeah. Yeah. And I was actually probably 19, because I -- my birthday was
always on the early side, so I was like, the early age in the class. So yeah, and my parents had no idea where I was going, because I had no idea where I was going, any day -- one day to the next, and I'd call them once every two weeks or something. And now, like it was amazing, and I think now as a parent, I think, how could I ever let my child do that? But what was amazing is that my parents did a really good job. Like I've always been really responsible, I never did any crazy, you know, throwing things back in their face rebelling. I did shave my head the first year of college, but that was just for fun. And it was awesome, and I loved it. And my dad always says I got back from college that year, I got back in the spring, so went to school in '89, so it was the spring 00:29:00of '90, and I arrived home with a shaved head and my dad just looked at me, I hadn't told him, and he just looked at me and sat there quietly for a few minutes, and then said, "Well, I always wondered if you had a lumpy head and I'm glad you don't." And he would not say another word about it, he was so angry with me.RINK: Are we talking completely shaved, or just?
MAY: It was pretty Sinead. I mean, it was pretty short. And I kept it that way
for about six months. I did Grease that summer with Summer Show, actually, my first summer back from college, and I had to wear this like, crazy platinum wig for Grease. But anyway, so yeah, so Drew was great in that way. Because it did give me a tremendous amount of theater experience, and it was a very -- I liked that it was sort of a generalist theater degree. It wasn't you had, you know, it wasn't a conservatory program, which I'm really against, because I wanted to be taking biology and statistics and four theater classes. I didn't want -- and I think it's really important, if you're going to be a theater artist, to be knowledgeable about the rest of the world, and reflect the world. And I 00:30:00think a lot of my sort of desire to build community and be involved in social issues, and all of that, was inspired by having all those other influences and not just learning theater exclusively.RINK: What did the time in Europe by yourself do for you, or teach you? What do
you take away from that?MAY: Well I think that just the doing of it, you know, is a big part of it. You
know, I planned it, and I was on my own, and I kept myself safe. And, you know, I had a couple of tricky experiences, nothing major, but where people could have, you know, done something to me. And I learned I could meet -- you know, having grown up in such a small community, knowing everyone, I didn't know how to meet people until I went to college. Like that's the first time, when I went to college, my parents left me at college, and that was the first time I'd ever been somewhere where I didn't know anybody, in my life. And so, you know, so I had a couple years at Drew to do that, but then just traveling, and just being in a train station, and walking up to a group of people with 00:31:00backpacks going, "Anyone speak English?" You know, and just suddenly you're traveling with them for four days. So I think it just gave me a sense of confidence. Gave me a sense of perspective on the world. I mean I traveled a lot, because my mom is from Yugoslavia, we'd been to Austria, we'd been to Yugoslavia, we'd been to Mexico, we'd been -- you know, we traveled a lot as kids, we were very fortunate in that way. But just doing it myself, and getting a sense of what the world is, and what other people's perspectives are. And I actually had this whole plan when I came back that I was going to do like, the South Africans and like the Canadians, and like, so many of the -- and the Aussies, a lot of the Aussies and the New Zealanders, they all take a year off, you know, after college, and they spend a year traveling, and I had this whole plan when I came back, and I was like, that's what I'm going to do. And I told my family, I'm like, I'm going to get one of those backpacks and I'll be gone for a year. And yeah, it didn't happen. There's some very specific reasons [inaudible]. [laughter] 00:32:00RINK: Now, one thing I want to probe on, because you mentioned it, and in
reading through some of your background, and based on my knowledge of synchronicity, I know that in addition to theater, in and of itself being important to you, the fact that you see the whole issue of theater art and social action, social action aligning or building on each other, when did this dovetailing of those two interests of yours come about, and how did that come about?MAY: I just think that's part of my DNA, and I credit that to my family, you
know. I think that's one of those places that I felt different as a kid. In that, and this is being slightly judgmental of the people I grew up around, they were all lovely people. But there was often a feeling of entitlement, it was a lot of those folks, and things were given to them a lot. And my parents were always very specific, even though they had a lot of means, they, you know, my dad grew up, his dad was a mechanic, you know, my dad grew up poor, and put 00:33:00himself through school, and the whole thing. So, and my mom being, you know, being an immigrant, there was a lot of that sense of work ethic, and all of that. So, I feel like we always had a sense of social responsibility in who we were. And, you know, that we were to take care of others and that we were to give back, and we were to serve, and volunteer, and help and, you know, so that's just always been part of my fabric, and a very strong mother who went through this, you know -- I was self-actualized by the time I was 13 or 14, because my mom, as we were growing up, you know, was doing everything she did [inaudible] and we were put into [inaudible] and she did, you know, walking on coals and a course in miracles, and she would drink fly larva, and like the, you know, everything that you did in the '70s to sort of like, find yourself, and she did therapy, and so we went right along with her on all that stuff. And so, I think there was always a sense that we're part of something bigger, it's not just about you, it's not, you know, just is part of my makeup, and so 00:34:00those are the stories I've been interested in, you know, and I've always, I think I've always felt slightly guilty that I had so much privilege growing up, and that I didn't have anything really ultimately very bad happen. And so, I've -- that has propelled me into a sense that I have been given that, and so how can I help give that stability, that love, that understanding, to others? Which is where some of the work with, you know, Playmaking for Girls and that stuff comes from.RINK: I just want to follow up on one thing. You said your mom, as she was going
through these different things in the '70s movements, all this other stuff, and you were sort of brought along. What did you think at the time? Did you think this is just sort of normal? Did you think this is sort of bizarre, or?MAY: It's -- you know, we just, my mom, like I said, we used to call her, like
you're just a fruit loop. I mean, I think we didn't realize the value of it 00:35:00until later. But it was just part of who my mom was. You know, we'd tease her about it and say oh what, you know, what thing are we trying this week? What food are we -- we shopped at the food co-op, she'd slip tofu into our food. Now my husband and I are like, trying this plant-based diet right now. And we're sort of going vegan, and we're doing all this stuff. And it's just, I keep harkening back to my mom, and, you know, but so much of what my mom taught me, because of her work in that area, personal work in that area, I think makes me a good director. I mean, I'll always remember, you know, I would be acting out as a teenager, be like, "Mom I hate you," and run up to my room, and throw myself down on the bed and, you know, and she'd come and sit next to me, instead of getting mad, instead of whatever, and she would just say, "You know, I know that's the mask that you're putting toward me, but what's really going on with you?" And it made me so mad when she would say that, because I'm like, "What's really going on is that I'm pissed at you, and that's exactly what I'm saying." And she's like, "I know that's what you're saying, but what's really going on?" And it would make me so crazy because of course, she was exactly right, right? But -- and also, [inaudible] 00:36:00"Well what really happened is such and such said I was ugly, and oh!" But as a director right, that's what you have to do. OK, great, that's awesome. And now, so like what's really happening with this character? And now, with my kids, I do so much of what my mom did with us, and I think we were slightly resentful of it as kids, and sort of teased her about it, because it was all part and parcel of like, the divorce, and all that. So I think we had a little bit of resistance to it. And it was also framed in all that crazy '70s stuff. So, it was a little goofy. But the work that she was doing was really valuable, and good, and made her so much the amazing person that she is. So I totally credit her with having that kind of ability to not respond to what, you know, to try and look beyond what people are throwing at you. I think that helps me as a leader, and as a director.RINK: Have you told your mom this?
MAY: Yeah. I tell her.
RINK: How does she react?
MAY: She appreciates it. Every now and then, I do call her and I'm like, you
know, I just did this thing, and it was like you, and I just so appreciate it. You know, my sister, my older sister is not as -- she doesn't talk about her 00:37:00feelings in that way. And so, she's less likely to tell my mom that. And so, my mom's always appreciative when I tell her. And I'll say, you know, and Jess said this too. And she'll say, "Oh yeah, Jess would never tell me, but thanks for telling me." So, yeah, she appreciates it. We're close.RINK: OK. Now before I leave college, I want to just touch on one other aspect.
As you were going through college, and you were starting to get your feet wet in various aspects of the theater, who were you looking up to? Were there either national figures or people on campus, or people that you wanted to emulate, or to draw inspiration from?MAY: Yeah, that's a really good question. I'm not sure I have a great answer
for it. I mean, there actually were very few women who were leading theaters at that time. So, and I didn't even, I didn't have any sense that I was like, I'm going to be an artistic director, I hear young people saying that a lot now. Like people coming out of college, and I didn't have that sense. I just knew I wanted to do theater. I didn't know what that meant really at that 00:38:00point, as a career. But yeah, I mean, you know, I obviously, you know, looked at the Ann Bogarts and the, you know, these people who were creating really wonderful theater and who were in our textbooks, and -- but I didn't really have a strong -- I've never really had a strong, sort of like that's my mentor. One of my teachers, Jim Basowitz, I had to think of his real name, because we called him Baz. He was a scenic design teacher, and I really connected with him, and loved him, and he was a really great theater artist. And, but I think, you know, in terms of like who to be as a person, I mean, I think I've always looked really a lot at my parents. All of the various parents. But yeah, I've never really had a mentor, per se.RINK: OK. So, you finished --
MAY: That's a lie. I did once, after college, but [inaudible].
RINK: You finished college.
MAY: Yes.
RINK: You thought you were going to do the year in Australia, or traveling,
whatever, and you said that didn't happen. So, you graduate from Drew, what 00:39:00was the next step?MAY: Yeah. So I graduate from Drew, I come home, and I get a call. And the
history of this is that there was a boy, and his name was Andrew Morgan. And Andrew and I had been friends since we were in sixth grade, fifth grade, something like that. And we'd been sort of friends and enemies all through high school, and often enemies, strangely, we -- I think, I don't know how to tell the story short, I'll tell it as short as I can. I think that there was probably, we were always probably in love. And didn't -- he couldn't bear me, because I was not willing to go there, and so he just pushed me away and we had all these fights, and anyway. So, minutes after graduating high school, we'd sort of become friends in senior year again, and like, minutes after graduating high school, we looked at each other and went, we're totally in love, crazy. And we had this like, insane three-week romance, and then he went to Annapolis to the military academy, which is where he had been heading. So 00:40:00then, we were sort of like well, I guess that's done, because I'm not going to see you for four years. And then, but our hearts were still there, and so then I went back to -- I went to school, and had another relationship, and that broke Andrew's heart, because just after I started this other relationship he called and said, "I'm leaving Annapolis, I don't want to be here, it's horrible, it's not for me. I'm coming home, I can't wait to see you." And I was like, "Oh, I just started this other," hmm. And that started sort of four years of us missing each other. He would complete a relationship and then be like, "I'm free, I love you." And I'd be like, "Oh, I" -- and then I would do the same. So, he had come to Georgia Tech after he left Annapolis. And so then I went on these travels, and I came home, and I called him, and I said -- or he, I don't remember. But anyway, what it came down to is I called him and I said, "I feel like I need to come down there and figure 00:41:00out where we're at. And then I'll know what this is." And he said, "Don't come, I can't deal with you. I just can't bear you." And I said, "I'm coming anyway." And so, it was sort of like, am I going to go travel the world for a year, or am I going to go down to this crazy place called Georgia? And figure out what's going on with him, and then go on with my life? And I went to Georgia, and so I packed my car, my Honda Accord, with my music, and my clothes, and I said to my parents, I'm leaving, and I'm moving, and I might be back in a week, and I might live there, and I have no idea. And I had no job. And I arrived in Atlanta, and I went to his dorm --RINK: This was?
MAY: Fall of '93.
RINK: OK.
MAY: September of 1993. This is 20 years. And I was in the South, and I was
really freaked out that I was in the South, and I went to his dorm, and he said, "Go away, I can't deal with you." And I was like, "Where am I going to 00:42:00stay? I thought I could stay with you tonight." And he's like, "No, you can't." And I started calling -- this is pre-cell phone, he's like, "Here's a phone" [overlapping dialogue; inaudible] --RINK: And when you keep saying, "I can't deal with you," was he -- do you
think he was just like, he liked you so much that he didn't want to deal with it? Or is it --MAY: Oh, I was -- yes. And so, you know, he hands me a phone book, and I sit
there and I call hotels and every hotel was booked in town, there was a convention or whatever. I find some place up on Windy Hill, I didn't know where that was, I went there, two o'clock in the morning. He's like, "I love you so much." So yeah, it was -- and so, we just had this very tumultuous, and Andrew and I always -- it was always clear to us that we were either going to get married and be together forever, or we were going to kill each other. And what we ultimately did was we kind of killed each other, and we -- in, you know, metaphorical terms, not in any physical terms, but we just kept missing each other, you know, and it was a very passionate and confused and difficult relationship. And we were, so then I found a place to live, and I got a waiting tables job, and I, you know, started trying to figure out why I was in 00:43:00Georgia, and we were sort of together and not, and together and not, and my parents couldn't --RINK: And he was in school at Georgia Tech?
MAY: He was at Georgia Tech. Well, he had just finished school, and then he was
working as an RA, he had sort of stayed on to work there, and so, yeah, so then I just thought why am I here? And then I started looking around at the theaters, and I started trying to get some work in theater, and then that just started to happen. And --RINK: And how long did the --
MAY: Relationship?
RINK: -- the on again, off again with Andrew continue?
MAY: [laughter] A long time. Well I got married to my husband in '97, so --
God, these times are so weird. So I think what happened is, Andrew and I were on and off for a year and a half, two years. And then right around that time, Daniel, my husband Daniel, and I met. And then we had, I don't know, I think we got married a year and a half after we met. So, which was in fall of '97, 00:44:00which is also the year that we founded -- I founded Synchronicity. [laughter]RINK: So was the eventual breaking with Andrew due to meeting Daniel? Or had
that already happened?MAY: Oh God, Andrew and I broke up so many times. Yeah, I mean I think we just
ultimately finally came to a place where it wasn't healthy for us. And I think that was probably around the time, I know that Daniel met him, and I know that Daniel was not a big fan of his, because he didn't like sort of how he had been with me. Andrew is a good guy, just we were not a good -- we were either a perfect match, or a really bad match.RINK: Are you still in touch?
MAY: He actually passed away two years ago. Two or three years ago, yeah. He
went out kind of the way I would have expected, he died in a motorcycle accident. So, yeah. We had actually reconnected a little before that, and I'm glad we did, because we had a chance to sort of talk about some of the craziness and, you know, I was able to find out how he was doing, and all that.RINK: Had he ever married, or?
00:45:00MAY: He hadn't. I kind of think that, you know, I think that was his path.
Like I was -- we were that path, and then I found another path that was more right, and he didn't. Another one of my only other loves of my life just died this spring, actually. So it's sort of strange that that's happening. Yeah. But anyway.RINK: So, where did you -- you said you eventually got a place to live here in
Atlanta. What part of town were you living in? What did you think? Because that was one of my interesting things to me about you, is coming from Massachusetts, and coming to the South, what were your initial thoughts? How did what you experienced compare to what you had anticipated? And where were you living, sort of what were some of your initial interactions with Atlanta as a place?MAY: Yeah. Gosh, there were a lot. I mean, I got a little place within a few
days. It was a little sort of tiny guest house cabin behind a house in Decatur. 00:46:00On South Columbia Drive. And, you know, my town that I grew up in was, I always call it Whitey Whiteville. I mean, there were five, in my entire high school, or school experience, there were five kids who were non-white. And they were all adopted by white families. There were like two Asian girls and three black kids. And they were all from -- in white families. So when I came to the South, that was a huge -- I mean, school was a little bit more diverse, college, but that was a huge thing. And I lived on South Columbia Drive, so I was shopping, you know, my grocery store was down on Memorial Drive. And I'm walking around, and A, I can't speak Southern. And B, I can't speak old African American Southern, and I'm shopping with all old African American people, and these lovely grandmothers and stuff are talking to me, and I had no idea what they were saying half the time. And I felt really stupid. And I went to the thrift stores down there to buy all the stuff for my house, my new little house, and 00:47:00these men would say something to me when I had this couch I'm trying to -- and eventually someone nice would come over and go, "He's saying he'll drive it up to your house for $10." I'm like, great, sold, go. But I couldn't -- I literally couldn't understand anything anyone was saying to me. So, that was a whole other experience for me. And I had not lived in a city. So that was a whole other experience. Decatur was great, because it's such a town in the midst of being in Atlanta. So I think had I moved to just like, a condo or an apartment in downtown Atlanta, that would have been really jarring. But I did start waiting tables at Dailey's, which is one of the peasant restaurants, it's a convention restaurant right in Peachtree, you know, across from Peachtree Center in downtown. So, that was a whole other planet to me. You know, and there were a lot of homosexual men who were waiting tables with me, who were very much, there's a very specific, that is a very specific group of people that -- lifetime waiters who are gay. And they had a totally different, that was 00:48:00a totally different interaction for me, for the most part. And they were alternately very supportive of me, and also dismissive. They liked to call me fish, and get me out of the way and stuff. So there was some like, aggressive towards girls kind of stuff. But I mean, due to those guys, who were great, and really sweet, I ended up one day at one of their birthday parties, at a little place, I think, called the Watering Hole, I don't know if it's still around. And it's a little tiny bar, and I went there, and he was both gay and African American, and I'm at this little bar, he's like, everybody come for my birthday. And moments after I arrive, the lights go down, and these two gigantic, very large men in -- wearing very tiny, tiny G-strings walk out into the middle of the bar. And the bar is as big as like, this tiny space you and I are in. And they start dancing. And like, climbing up on -- and so what I found out was that it was a gay strip -- a black, gay strip bar. This little tiny bar. So, I'm, you know, and this is literally like, months after arriving here. So 00:49:00I was like, this is a totally different experience in my life. And this man's on top of me like, and I'm like, "Give me money so I can get him off," you know? So it was like a whole other world to me. So yeah, there was a lot of learning experiences when I got here.RINK: Wow.
MAY: So.
RINK: So how did you initially connect in with the theater community here, and
what were some of the first jobs you took in the theater world?MAY: I've always had a really good producer brain, so I'm a good stage
manager. So, that's a very sellable skill. So, but what I started doing is I literally -- I mean, literally, when I first moved here, I had no furniture, I had a phone, because this is pre-cell phones, I had a phone and a phone book. And I would go OK, today I need a bed. And I would flip through the phone book and find a mattress place, and I had a map. And I was like, OK, that's in a place called Marietta. Where is that? OK, that's where I'm going to go to get my bed. So, I just flipped through and started looking for theaters, and I just started calling theaters. And I said, "Hello, I'm new to town, I can do 00:50:00a lot of different things, I'm happy to help out. I'm happy to intern, I'm happy to -- I just would like to get involved." And one of the theaters I called was Seven Stages, and Faye Allen, who was one of their founders, answered the phone, and she said, "Absolutely, can you come down here tomorrow?" And I said, "OK." And I went, she's like, "I need a helper," and I said, "Great." She's like, "Organize these headshots." I said, "Great," did that. She said, "Go sweep the theater." "OK, I'll go sweep the theater." And within I think like, six months, I was their Actor's Equity stage manager. So, I was there, which is the union stage manager. So what I learned really quickly, and what I always tell young interns and stuff who work with us is, if you do what you say you'll do, and you are eager to learn, and you play well with others, you will work. You know? So I showed up, I was very responsible, I brought a lot of value, because I could do lots of different things. And so pretty quickly, people were like oh, you can do this job and this job and this job. 00:51:00RINK: And how long did you continue to work there at Seven Stages, as a stage manager?
MAY: Gosh, I was at Seven Stages for a few years. I can't say I can remember
exactly. And at the same time, I was still waiting tables, and I was trying to start getting some directing things. So I directed like, a little tiny, I don't even remember -- the group was called Cast, I think. It's a little tiny community theater thing, and I was just trying to figure out sort of who's who. And again, this is so -- it's so funny, because I don't even remember now really how I found them all, because this is pre-internet. I mean now, I know exactly what I'd do to find them all. But I think it was just talking to people, and the phone book, and just driving around, and seeing who was doing what, and the paper wrote about the theaters in those days. And so, reading about that. But yeah, and then I heard about a directing gig at Georgia Tech. Strange how my life has stemmed from Georgia Tech in so many ways. So I went over there and I interviewed for the job, it was to direct, gosh, what was 00:52:00the show? I directed a few shows for them, so I don't remember. But, so I started, I was at the interview, and I was exhausted, I had worked a double the day before, blah-blah-blah. And I was interviewing with Greg Abbott, who was their artistic director, who's now passed away, sadly. Great guy. And he said, "Let me get back to you about the job, but we have a show tonight, would you like to stay and watch?" And I said, "Well, what is it?" And he said, "It's Brendan Behan's The Hostage." Which is a really long Irish play. And of course, when someone's interviewing you for a job, you don't say, "No, I'm going to split." So I said, "OK, I'll stay." And it was a four hour long, horrendous, forgive me Greg, horrendous production. It was a theater (inaudible) and Georgia Tech partnership. Lorna Howley was in it, if you remember Lorna Howley, who was an actress who used to be in town, she was great. But all the college students had horrible Irish accents, and it was boring, and it was slow. But the play is, the setup is they keep talking about the hostage, the hostage, the hostage, the hostage. And eventually they bring out the 00:53:00hostage, and I thought, this play has just gotten much better, because the hostage was very cute. And so, I was very happy to watch the rest of the play, and I looked in the program and I thought, "Daniel, he's a very cute guy." Hmm, interesting. And ultimately, I ended up getting involved with some stuff at Georgia Tech, I directed a couple shows, they used to do this AIDS benefit called Peep Show that was like this big song and dance night that came from a lot of Georgia Tech drama tech students. And I got involved in that as a performer. And then Daniel was doing tech for that. And then, like I hired him to be crew on a show I was doing at Seven Stages, because I didn't want to go another week without seeing him, and then we fell in love, but that was sort of our beginning.RINK: You just [inaudible] question, I was going to ask how you and Daniel met.
MAY: That was it. [laughter] That's how I --
RINK: Was it mutual? Or were you pursuing him? Or do you know?
MAY: You know, I think it was mutual, but we didn't know it at the time. So we
00:54:00were both keeping an eye on each other. He told a story at our rehearsal dinner, I think, is when I heard the story for the first time, where he said that he had seen me at one of the Georgia Tech parties, you know, at this time, and he talked to his friend Will, and he said, "How can I get me one of those?" And if you know Daniel, that is so not the way he talks, that is not how he thinks, that is not -- so he was being a little tongue in cheek, but he had been keeping an eye on me as well. But we were from very different worlds. Both from a religious perspective, from a geographical perspective, from lots of different perspectives. So I don't think either of us ever knew if it was going to happen.RINK: So, if you don't mind, just go into a little bit of description of that
initial getting together when you're saying oh, this is a cute guy, and then starting to learn about the guy, and realizing how different he is from your background. What was that like for you? 00:55:00MAY: Well what I knew about Daniel early on was that he was a really good
Christian boy who came from an evangelical Christian background. And I was pretty agnostic at that point in my life. And I'd grown up like, with some Catholic and whatever, but not a whole lot of that. And so, I think, I mean in my mind a little bit, I thought well maybe I can corrupt this guy a little bit, this'll be fun. Because I had had a very different experience from that. and I knew that he hadn't dated much, and he hadn't done any of that. So, and I don't know what he thought of me. (laughter) I think he thought I was a mystery. But we just -- but we really hit it off, and it's funny, I found a journal years later, years ago now, like just a few years ago. And it had something I'd written in two weeks after we met that said, "I know this is crazy but I'm going to marry this guy." And I don't even remember having written that. But I think we always just felt like we were being, at the time, I would not have said this, but we were being put together, you know, that there 00:56:00was a plan for us. And we were together for a good bit, six months, eight months or something, and then Daniel -- we broke up, because we still had very different values in terms of faith. And I know, crazy as it sounds, and it's crazy to my family, it's crazy to me, too. I really, I actually came to a place where I started to believe. And became a Christian, and that was a huge surprise to me, because I've always been very, very against that. And very aggressively against that. And I -- so it's one of those things that is even hard to explain to myself, you know, but it's true for me. And so, a while after that happened, we came back together and got married.RINK: Wow.
MAY: Yeah. It's weird. [laughter] Still to this day, it's weird.
00:57:00RINK: It's just a great story though. Let me see where I want to go.
MAY: So many places, so many places. [laughter]
RINK: So when you -- so you got, you and Daniel married in '97?
MAY: Yes.
RINK: And I know that you founded Synchronicity performance group as it was
called at the time.MAY: Yes.
RINK: Now Synchronicity Theater, roughly the same time. Talk to me a little bit
about the chronology, because that seems like a lot to be going on all in the same year.MAY: Yeah.
RINK: And talk to me a little bit about how you came to the decision that hey, I
want to be in theater, but I don't want to just work for other people, I want to start my own.MAY: Yeah. Sure. Yeah, it was a lot in that same year. I've never slept a
whole lot. So, I would like to, but I've just worked a lot. So, it was a lot. I mean I was waiting tables, and then I would go to a theater rehearsal, and then, you know, so there was always a ton going on. So, I had met a number of people, I'd met Julie Oceans, and I'd met Hope Mirlis, who I'd gotten to be friends with, and Michelle Pierce, and we were all sort of working around each other in different places. And just around the theater community. And 00:58:00Michelle actually called a meeting together with about 20 young artists and she actually held up a piece of paper that said "Synchronicity" on it, and it said -- from Jung, it said, "A meaningful coincidence." And she said, "I think we should start a group called Synchronicity, and we should start doing plays." And we were all like, that sounds great. Because at that time, it was really a feeling of we had all this passion, we had all this. There wasn't really any avenue for us. So, you know, there weren't that many -- there were the bigger theaters, but there weren't really, at that point, there was -- Dad's Garage was sort of just starting to get started. There was no PushPush, there was no Synchronicity, there was no Out of Hand. There was none of these smaller companies, so there -- it was hard to sort of see where you'd have a place. You weren't going to walk into the Alliance and say, at that time, Kenny Leon, give me a job. Like, it just wasn't going to happen.RINK: Let me just jump in.
MAY: Yeah.
RINK: What about the Actors Expresses, or the Theater in the Squares? Had you
guys approached them, and they were not receptive?MAY: No, they were receptive for like, you could come on and you could do little
-- you could do like a props job, and stuff like that. But in terms of, we had this passion, like we wanted to direct plays. And we wanted to act in the 00:59:00leading roles, and stuff like that, and it was hard to find that. And we were sort of hungry to do that. So, but those theaters at that time were still pretty big and a little bit more siloed. Now I feel like the community's much more open now than it was then. But that's just my perception. Maybe because I'm in it, I don't know. But anyway, so Michelle brought us all together and we all made some tasks. "OK, by the next meeting, you're going to research -- you five are going to research about becoming a nonprofit. You guys are going to do this." So the next meeting, there were about eight of us, and so gone down from 20 to 8, and only 4 of us had done anything that we said we were going to do. The next meeting, there were the four of us. [laughter] So --RINK: And of the eight, you said there were eight, and four had done.
MAY: Yeah.
RINK: Were all eight women?
MAY: No, no. It was a mishmash. We didn't really have that mission in mind at
that point. But so, it was me, Julie, Hope, and Michelle, and we said, you know what? Let's do a show. And Michelle said, "I have this play that I've wanted to adapt as a writer. It's Feign'd Curtizans, The Feign'd Curtizans," 01:00:00which is by Aphra Behn. Who was the first ever published playwright from the sixteenth century. Female playwright, excuse me. And so, we said all right, that's a perfect first show. And in what became the spirit of Synchronicity, we said, "How do we put this on in partnership with somebody? So that we can learn from other people's experiences, we can work with someone else," and so we went to Emory, because Hope was an Emory grad, and Emory had just built this restoration theater inside their black box, it's when they had the thing called the Black Rose. It was maybe in their first or second year of the Black Rose. So they had a restoration theater, with the gallery and the lights, and it was beautiful. And we said, "Hey, can we do The Feign'd Curtizans here? And we will cast some of your students, so it'll be a great experience for you guys, and can we get it for free?" And they said, "Yes." And that was our first full show. Before that, just to step back for a quick second, early on, we said that we wanted to have artists in different disciplines. We wanted to have 01:01:00visual artists, and theater artists. We didn't want to just have like photographers and we wanted them all to be in the mix. We wanted to create things together. So our very first project was, we decided that we would adapt Crime and Punishment for the stage. [laughter] Because that's easy, right? So, we started working on it, and we actually got it to sort of a workshop performance. And we did -- I don't know if that exists on tape anywhere, if it does that would be amazing, but Hope was the horse, and she got whipped to death, and like this whole thing. Saxon Palmer was in it orig-- like he was the young man, and he and I played opposite each other. I mean, it's so funny. But anyway, so that was [sneezes] -- excuse me. That was our first project, and then The Feign'd Curtizans was our first show. And Seven Stages gave us the space -- Seven Stages gave us the space for Crime and Punishment. Emory gave us the space for The Feign'd Curtizans. Then we sort of did that one show, and then we went back to our scurrying around and trying to make money, and do all of our other 01:02:00jobs, and then we came back together and we did a second show, and Horizon gave us the space. We did Marisol by Jose Rivera. And so, our first three years we did one play a year. And --RINK: What kind of response were you getting from theatergoers?
MAY: It was great, yeah, it was great. Like, we were definitely sort of this
young, passionate, we were doing work that nobody else was doing in town, we were doing it in a different way. It definitely spoke to the audience. And from very early on, we learned that we wanted to support women's voices. So that was a big part of what we did. And we wanted, of course, our first three plays, only one was by a woman, and one was by Jose, and one was by Pirandello, so. But we had, they were women-led. But we wanted to build community. So like, when we did the piece about, when we did Marisol it deals with a city that's falling apart. And there's, you know, so we started to think about the notion of community outreach, and all of that, and then we did Six Characters in Search of an Author, 01:03:00because I loved it so much, so I was like, "How about we do this?" And there was a new adaptation of it. And then we said, you know, we'd done three shows, we were getting great audience response, great artist response, like the artist community was really into it. And we said, "Let's get our nonprofit status and let's do this for real, so that we can all start to commit to it." Because it was hard to do it, and then everything else. So in 2000, we got our 501(c)(3), with the help of a lawyer pal, and we started doing full seasons. And that was our first, like we did Paula Vogel's Hot and Throbbing, which deals with domestic violence. And that was our first real partnership, we went ahead and we partnered with two domestic violence agencies, and we had some educational materials and stuff for the audience, and that was when we started figuring that out. And then we also sort of in Atlanta, we started with another company in Atlanta. So it's been big in Atlanta for many years. We started the 01:04:0024 hour plays with a film group, which was friends of ours, called -- this is three children ago, so I'm not going to remember their name, I can't believe I can't remember this. I don't remember the film company's name, it's not in existence anymore. But the two of us started the 24 hour plays. And we produced it every like, four months. So every four months, we would put on this giant thing and stay up all night, and do --RINK: Yeah I was going to say, give a little background on what that is.
MAY: Yeah. The 24 hour plays is you get -- and it has infused a lot of other
things that we've done, but you get a group of artists together, and they write, rehearse, and perform eight plays within 24 hours. So, on the first day, you get -- at night, you get a group of 16 writers. You pair them up, they write all through the night. First thing in the morning, the director and the actors come in. Or the directors come in, and they have headshots of all the actors who have said they want to participate. They're all supposed to be sitting at home next to their phones. The directors get their scripts, they have 20 minutes to read them, cast them, and then we do like a draft, and you cast all the parts. And then the actors are in by 9:30 in the morning, the show goes up at 8:30 that 01:05:00night. We used to do it at Horizon, they used to host us, so we'd be all over that building for 24 hours, we would bring -- we would have food sponsors who brought in coffee and food and stuff throughout the 24 hours. And it was great. It was this great community building thing. We did it for, gosh, we probably did it for four years maybe, I'd have to check my [inaudible].RINK: And this was Synchronicity-led?
MAY: Synchronicity and, ooh.
RINK: The Felt Company?
MAY: The Felt Company. Oh my gosh.
RINK: You can add it in later.
MAY: I will. I was going to say, I will look it up. I mean, we're still good
friends with the people who ran it, but I forget their name. So yeah, we ran it with them. And then at some point, they sort of pulled out and we kept running it. And then Synchronicity got to a point where our other productions were taking a lot more focus, so we stopped running it, and we sort of handed it to Horizon did it for a while, and then the writers, I can't think of names today, apparently. Working Title, they took it on, and they've done some of them. And we gave them, we had -- I'm a fanatic for organizing and archiving 01:06:00all of our processes. So thank God, because it's hard to start a theater company and, you know, we've always documented things. So we had a great handbook for how to run the 24 hour plays. And we sort of handed it off with our blessing to other people who were going to run it. Because we wanted it to continue, we just couldn't keep doing it.RINK: So, early on, you decided that you wanted part of Synchronicity's focus
to be on sort of the merging of the artistic and the social.MAY: Yeah.
RINK: And also, a focus on women, and women playwrights, women's stories
[inaudible]. How do you feel now looking back over 13 years since 2000, but really 16 years of being in existence?MAY: Yeah.
RINK: How do you feel about your success at being able to accomplish that mission?
MAY: Yeah, I think we've been really very successful in that. And I think
it's actually what's kept us alive. Because in a way, we're a niche company. We're not for everybody. It's always struck me as very strange that 01:07:00our plays are considered sort of cutting edge in Atlanta, because if we were in New York, for example, our plays would not be. You know, what we do would not be considered cutting edge. But, and I think more sort of pushing the envelope stuff has come in, in the time that we've been around. So I think that's changed a bit since we started, but, you know, we've produced -- about 85% of the plays that we've produced are by female playwrights. So we have stayed very true to that mission of bringing women's voices forward. We have a tremendous number of very successful community partnerships that we've started, and that go across the span of our life as an organization. Our Playmaking for Girls program came out of a community outreach program around a play. And so, we really, I think, have been very true to it. And I feel like in the couple of times that we've veered off our mission slightly because of 01:08:00financial concerns or, you know, that sort of thing, that's when we've been not successful. So, it's been really clear to me that having a clear and specific mission, and really committing to that with full throttle, is what makes us most successful.RINK: Talk to me a little bit about one of the times that you veered from your
mission and how it didn't work out.MAY: Yeah. I think there have just been a couple of times that, especially like
right when the recession hit, that the company, the board, me, the leadership of the company, we all got scared, and risk-averse. And maybe made choices about projects because we thought that they would be more financially successful. And I'm all for choosing projects so that they're financially successful, but they have to be something that we're passionate about, and they have to be something that fits our mission. And the times that I feel like we've picked a play because we thought it would sell only, you know, and it was kind of on our 01:09:00mission, I feel like those are the times that it's not been as successful. And in the early days, Michelle, and Hope, and Julie, and I were co-producing artistic directors. So we all had an equal voice. And in those days, we all had to love a show if we were going to do it. If anyone was like, kind of [Pesci?] on it, we didn't do it. And then when Julie left, because she moved to Miami, it was just the three of us, and that helped. And then, right after I had my first child, or right -- no, three months before I had my first child, we decided this, Michelle and Hope decided they needed to step down.RINK: And that was what year?
MAY: That was -- so it would have been fall of 2006, because Harper was born in
January of 2007. So, Michelle wanted a non-theater life that was simpler. Because she had her own sort of family needs. And Hope wanted to go to grad school, so she went to California. So, I had thought oh great, this'll be perfect, I'm going to have my baby and these two will run the company for a little bit, I can step back. And they were like, "Rachel, we've got to step 01:10:00down." And I was like, "Oh!" So we -- that was challenging. So, and that was moments before the recession hit. So that started what's been sort of the last five or six years has been really challenging, like we're finally emerging out of that a little bit. But it's been a hard go, both for me because I was adding child and then twin children to the mix, and the economy's been so difficult for everybody. And then, you know, having my partners step down. So, but at that time, what for the organization was good is that we were able to get a clearer structure, which is, we went to one producing artistic director, a managing director, development director, you know, it just got a lot cleaner, which was helpful, because then, you know, once you don't just have the founders running the company, you will have staff turnover. So people will be there for two or three years, and then they'll go. And if the job descriptions are based around, you know, Michelle does this really well, Hope does this really well, I do this really well, it's very hard to re-hire a 01:11:00Hope, you know? And so, we really felt that it was important to have a structure that was easier for succession of different roles. And including my own, if at some point I would like to do something else.RINK: So, here we are basically seven years after Hope and Michelle left.
MAY: Yeah.
RINK: How is the reality compared to what you were thinking or fearing back in
the fall of 2006?MAY: Yeah. You know, quite frankly, I'm not sure I had a lot of time to think,
or fear. I mean, I just, there was a lot of like, just -- I mean it was a lot of you're going to drown if you don't swim. So, not their doing, but the fact of the matter was, I had, you know, again, brand new baby, suddenly running the company alone. Thank God I hired Amy [Roche?] [inaudible] at that time who's no longer in Atlanta, but a friend of ours connected us, and she moved here to be with Synchronicity as the managing director for three years. And if I didn't have her at that time, I'm not sure what would have happened. Because 01:12:00she was really amazing, and a fellow mom of little tinies at that point. So we were able to really support each other in that way, as well as organizationally. But I mean, I think that the company has really become a real company in that time. I think before, it was a passionate project for all of us, and we worked really hard. We did a lot of good work, but now, there's a much more sort of official structure to it. I feel much more like if and when I ever leave Synchronicity, it could -- I want it to go on, right? I don't want -- and Michelle and Hope wanted it to go on, and we were all a little afraid probably that it might fall apart if it wasn't the three of us, but, so that was the first hurdle was making it go forward. And then I think we all -- I know I really want it to be strong and structurally sound so that it's not hanging on the balance of one person. I think that's really important. Sort of for the life and growth of an organization. 01:13:00RINK: Let me stick with Synchronicity. I've got, we've got about half an
hour left, and I've got a list of about six things I want to make sure we cover. To sort of stick with Synchronicity for a little bit, early on, you made the decision that you were not going to have a physical space.MAY: Yeah.
RINK: If you can talk a little bit about that, and what had been the pros and
the cons of that model.MAY: Sure. Sure.
RINK: So that as other theater people perhaps looking at this interview in the
future will have something to go by as something to learn from.MAY: I think that early on, we viewed it as a really positive thing. First of
all, I mean it's born out of not having any money, right? So --RINK: And tell -- and say exactly, you physically did not have the building.
MAY: We did not have a building, yeah. We were -- we used to call ourselves
nomadic. And when you're tiny, and you're just getting started, you have to perform wherever someone will give you free space. So we did not have a way to pay for space. Plus, there weren't that many spaces to pay for, quite frankly. Atlanta does not have that many to rent, and certainly not on a no budget, tiny, 01:14:00tiny theater company. So, we just went to the theaters who we knew, and people we knew, and really Synchronicity exists because of the good graciousness of Seven Stages, and Horizon, and Richard Garner at Georgia Shakespeare, and Theatrical Outfit. I mean there are so many theaters, and artists at those theaters, and leaders at those theaters, who took, you know, who were very kind to us early on, and not only gave us space, but also gave us advice. And Vinnie Murphy at Theater Emory, they gave us a lot of advice, you know? We would go to them and say we've never created a budget; do you happen to have a budget frame we could use? And they'd say yes, sure. They'd send over a document, and we'd go oh, great, that's perfect. We hadn't thought to put all those things in. So we were never afraid to ask, and I think that's really important. We were -- and nobody was ever shy about sharing. And I think that there's a couple reasons for that. One is that we asked nicely. [laughter] And the other is that we've always, from the beginning, we said we're going to treat people well, and that's everything from we've always fed our artists, 01:15:00and that was a big thing from Hope, because she was a cook as well as an artist. And so, we've always fed people, and we've always, if we borrow something from Georgia Shakespeare, we make sure it's returned in excellent time and excellent condition. We've always tried to be very, very, very good partners in every way. So I think we have a pretty damn good reputation in this town in that way, that we're going to take. I mean, I'm sure there's the odd person here and there that we haven't done what we wanted to do, in terms of treating them perfectly. But we really try to always take good care. So, people gave us space. So at first, we thought it was great. Because we thought oh, it's site-specific. We're going to, you know, we're going to put our restoration piece in the restoration theater, Theater Emory, that's perfect, that's what we want to do. And then we're going to put this piece over here, because that's the right space for that. And that was true for a bit. Ultimately it came down to who would give us space. And then we could sort of frame it in a good way. And then, we started to get to a point where it was really challenging not to have our own space, because audience members 01:16:00couldn't find us. And it was tricky to communicate with them, and to build an audience. We felt like we were rebuilding for each show. And so, we started renting the backstage at Seven Stages, and they were really good to us in how they gave us a good rate and stuff. And bit by bit, we sort of ended up in residence there. Every now and then we might do something elsewhere, but for a good chunk of time, we -- that was our home, was at Seven Stages. And it allowed us to have more buy-in, you know? We could go to Dell and say hey, we will -- the seats in there were terrible, the old seats, and so we said, listen we'll help raise, you know, can we each raise half of the money for new seats? And then we'll leave them here and other renters can use them, but basically we -- so when you go to Seven Stages in the back space, and you sit in those black, cushy seats, we paid for half of those. Even though we only used them for a certain amount of the year, we wanted to work with them. Or we'd say, we'll send a team in to help paint the hallway, can we do that? Because we want it to be pretty, but we'll send labor. So it allowed us to invest in the space in a way that was really great. And we formed a wonderful relationship with them for 01:17:00many years. They were extremely generous and wonderful with us. And then we -- that was about a 65 seat house. And so, we started our family series in 2002, and that was OK in a 65 seat house for a while, but that started to be too small. Because we were trying to do school groups, and we were trying to do more daytime shows. And our adult shows were starting to get sold out, and we didn't have enough space, and so then we said, well let's see if we can do a show at Horizon, let's see if we can do a show at -- we'll do our Christmas show at Theatrical Outfit, and that gives us room for that. So then we started branching out and finding that going back into 65 seats once you'd gone up to like 150, 175, was really challenging. So then we were in the 175, 185 seat range. And we didn't want to go away from that. So, this year, we're very excited because we are in one place for the whole year, we're at 14th Street Playhouse, and we're trying to build a long-term relationship with them, and 01:18:00again, looking at ways we can work with them on the building.RINK: What are -- and you don't have to go into tons of detail on -- I just
sort of want off the top of your, what are some of the things you're proudest of in terms of productions from Synchronicity, that really stand out in your head as, you know, these are the top three that I want people to know, [inaudible].MAY: Yeah, I'm really proud of Women in War, which was the show we did where
we interviewed almost 50 women whose lives had been impacted by war. Refugees and soldiers, and missionaries, and we built the piece around that play. We have a great little quote from President Carter about that project. That was [inaudible].RINK: And that got national recognition.
MAY: It did, yeah, it got national funding, it got national recognition, so
that's something I'm really proud of. Really proud of our production of Stop Kiss, that Michelle Pierce directed years and years and years ago, which was about two women who consider themselves straight, who fell in love, and the first time they kissed, they were the victims of a gay bashing incident. Really beautiful play that was sort of at the forefront of that conversation. I'm 01:19:00very proud of all the work we've done with domestic violence groups. We've done several plays over time that have dealt with that issue. I'm very proud of She Writes, which is part of our new play development programming. And every couple of years, we do a national new play competition and festival for female playwrights. And out of that, we have spawned -- we are this year doing our seventh annual rolling world premiere. So that means that for seven years, we've come up with a play that we really want to do, and we found partners around the country to do it with us. And we've all done the world premiere. So, and all of them except this year's were initiated by Synchronicity. And so, those are plays that we have single-handedly gotten produced, but also gotten other theaters to produce in the same time, and gotten those playwrights launched. So that's something else that we feel really proud of. I love all of our Jose Rivera work. Naomi Wallace, we did a piece called One Flea Spare, part 01:20:00of the Naomi Wallace festival that Vinnie Murphy put together in some year, [laughter] 2001, 2002, I don't know, '3? Who knows. And that was my favorite play ever, that I ever directed. There's a lot. We did a lot; we did this great Chekov piece that Michelle spearheaded a lot of the writing for.RINK: Are there any social issues that you haven't addressed yet that you want
to address?MAY: [laughter] Yes, lots of them. Actually we're working on a new piece right
now based on the Troy Davis case. But it really deals with the death penalty. And we're hoping to produce it next year, we've commissioned it, and we're -- we have some partners that we're looking at. We're working with the Emory arts and ethics department, and others. So that's an issue that I think is very complex, and difficult to talk about. We did a really great piece that dealt with Palestine and Israel, I would love to revisit that conversation, because it's changed a lot in the five or six years since we did that play. So --RINK: And what play was --
01:21:00MAY: My Name is Rachel Corrie. So yeah, I think I'm interested in revisiting
certain conversations over time, and right now, I'm trying to look at, I'm very interested in figuring out a community partner plan that spans time with the same organizations, so that we don't just go to the domestic violence agencies when we're doing a play about domestic violence, but we go to them always and we say, would you like to bring your -- the women in your shelters to see this play that doesn't have to do with domestic violence? Because you know what? They might want to see a play that doesn't have anything to do with it. [laughter] And our play this fall is dealing with dementia and Alzheimer's, we've not really dealt with that before, so I'm really interested in looking at that. So yeah, lots.RINK: OK. You've mentioned it a few times, and I think it's important to
sort of get this documented. Talk to me about the genesis of Playmaking for Girls, what it is, and how you feel about your success and accomplishing its mission.MAY: Yeah. I had a meeting with a judge and an attorney this morning, talking
about Playmaking for Girls, so it's fun to talk about it again. So, we did a play called Breath, Boom by Kia Corthron in 2002. And it dealt with girls in 01:22:00gangs. And we did not want our actors to stand up on the stage and play girls in gangs. So, we really wanted them to have some understanding of the authenticity of that experience. And we also saw it as an opportunity to give back. So we -- and we had just finished doing the 24 hour plays. And so, we had this thing, and I said, "Hey, what about if we get into a detention center, and we do a tiny 24 hour plays with a group of girls?" And everybody's like, all right. So, in the same spirit with what we normally do, we found another organization who already goes into detention centers and said, "Can we come do this for you?" And they were the -- with a W, the Wholistic Stress Control Institute. And they did a lot of stuff in detention centers. So we went in and we did this thing that we thought would just happen once, around this play. We brought our actors from the show, and we taught a two-day workshop, and on the first day, we paired the girls up, they wrote plays, they were short plays. And then on the second 01:23:00day, we came back, and rehearsed with them, and they did a staged reading of the play. So they performed the play. So it really was the 24 hour play structure. And it was amazing. The girls responded, our actors were like, this was incredible. The facility said, can you come back next week? Can you do this again? And we realized pretty quickly that it had to become something that we were going to do more of. And our board at first was like, that sounds really great. But we're a theater company, so no. That's not really what we do. And we said, well how about this? We think it is what we do. But we get it. So let us raise money for four workshops, and if we raise the money first, then can -- will you say yes? And they said, "OK." So, we did four workshops, we raised money, we did four workshops the first year. And then, of course, they were like oh my gosh, this is amazing, of course this is what we should be doing. And everybody got onboard. And then we did six workshops the next year. And then the next year, we did, I think we might have done six for two years, then we did eight workshops, and we added our summer program. Because we realized we want to 01:24:00do more with them, not just these two days. So the summer workshop is, we get girls for a week. They're either on probation or coming from group homes. And we take the best 10 plays that were written in the prior year in the detention centers, and we rehearse them for a week, they perform them to a public audience, and it's this really amazing experience. And then, the first -- see, we add bits and pieces. We're really good at piloting and then adding and adding. So, we can be successful. The second year, I think, of the summer program, we added a second performance where we go back into a detention facility and perform for the kids there. So we sort of bring it back full circle. Then we thought oh, we're meeting these girls where they're in trouble, the detention centers, we're meeting them when they're out of trouble, but we'd like to meet them before they get in trouble, so maybe we can stop them from getting into trouble. So Susie and I got a grant -- Susie Purcell, who is our program director for Playmaking for Girls, she and I got a grant to go look at after school programs around the country. Again, keeping 01:25:00with trying to think through something before we started and do it properly, and so we piloted our after school program with middle school girls in a Title One school. So we added that to the program. So it's -- and we could really, if we had enough money, that program could grow and be in every place. Because everywhere we go, they say can you do more? Can you do more? Can you do more? It's amazing.RINK: And do you have a story or two from any of the girls from your, you know,
in the past that have gone on to do other things that come back and tell you Playmaking for Girls was an important part of my journey?MAY: Yeah, we do. I mean, we had a girl who went off to college and she became a
poet, and she definitely reconnected with us. We have a girl we just sent to college this fall, or she's heading off right now. So we're hoping to hear great things from her. You know, the stories from Playmaking for Girls are small. And I mean that in a really good way. I feel like the work that we do with that program is dropping seeds. And so, one of the seeds that we drop is, 01:26:00one thing I talk about is that we were at this workshop and we paired girls up, we'd pair them up randomly, and so they can't choose, and we had one white girl, one black girl in a pair. And they very specifically said, I don't want to work with her because she's a white girl, she's a black girl. I don't want to work with her. She won't understand me. And so, we did what we do, which was we get them talking about some things that they might have in common, and we got them writing. And then they said, OK, go away, go away. They didn't want us there anymore. So we left them to write, and at the end of the day I went over, and I said, "So how'd it go?" And they looked at me and they went, "We learned teamwork." And I said, "Oh, that's great, tell me about that." And they said, "Well, I didn't think she could understand me because she's a white girl." "I didn't think she could understand me because she's a black girl. But then we both found out we have babies." And they wrote a play about two girls who meet in a doctor's office, and one is pregnant, and one has a baby, and the other one gives her advice. And they wrote this great play. And so, I feel like that's really indicative of a lot of the 01:27:00kind of stories we see. We really talk to them a lot about the fact that, well, about that we -- I feel like we dropped the little seeds, so next time they see somebody who they may not think can understand them, they have this experience to take into that. We also teach them a lot about sticking with it, and that we're going to stick with them, a lot of these girls have been pushed out. And have been abandoned, and have been victimized, and we really say to them like, we're in it. You have to follow these rules, and you have to do what you say you're going to do. But we're in it with you, and even through conflict, we work through the conflict with them, and we don't chuck them out at that point. So, it's a big deal for a lot of these girls. So we have some girls who have come back to our summer program five or six years in a row, and during the year, they might lose their cell phones, live in five different houses, be on the run, all of that. But they memorize Susie's phone number and May comes around, Miss Susie starts getting calls. "Miss Susie, this is Lakisha, I want 01:28:00to come back and I want to do the program this summer." "Where have you been?" "Well, I was on the street, and I was this, but I remember you and I want to come back." So there's something really powerful that brings them back in every year.RINK: That just prompted a thought, and I totally left my head. So you must be
contagious. [inaudible]. Let me just backtrack, because I did -- looking at your background information, one thing we didn't hit on, and I wanted to just get a little bit of information on, was the documentary films that you worked on, that went on PBS, that was very early in your career. And I'm curious how that came about.MAY: Yeah. Right, and that's --
RINK: And what they were.
MAY: When I said I didn't have a mentor and then fixed that, it was that. So
I'm glad you brought that back up. Yeah, in that sort of I guess for, I don't even [inaudible] I don't know, somewhere in that like, four-year period of moving to Georgia and starting Synchronicity, but although it went over the time that I started Synchronicity, I met Carol Cassidy, and she was -- 01:29:00I met her because she had written a play called She-Crab Soup that Zoink Productions produced, that I stage managed. And Zoink is not around anymore. And Daniel played -- I was like, well my -- I don't remember, it must have been boyfriend, I was like, my boyfriend could play that role. He's a really good actor. And the role was, it was a play about carnivals and sideshows and stuff, and the role was a silent role, and it was this -- the wild man of Borneo. So Daniel had to -- every night we were in this like, weird place in Virginia Highlands, like down in this basement, and Daniel had to like, be naked and put -- he had like a little loincloth, and he had to put like, dirt all over him, and like, stick fake fur on him. And he had to go cross through the bar every day to go to -- it was ridiculous. So anyway, I stage managed it, it was [inaudible]. But Carol was the writer of that play. And so, Carol saw that I was efficient, and she said, you know, I'm doing this documentary project for PBS called Baby Love, and it's about teen moms. And would you like to come and be 01:30:00a PA for me? I need a PA.RINK: Which is?
MAY: Production assistant. And I said, "OK. I've never done that, but sure,
what do you need me to do?" And that started our love affair. And so, Carol and I worked together for a number of years, I was a production assistant first, which I did basically -- I was basically Carol's assistant. She was the director and producer. So anything she needed me to do. We need to buy a new camera, research new cameras. OK. Here's all the research. OK, buy that one. You know, whatever needed to be done, we need to research teen pregnant-- girls who have had babies between 12 and 18 in Georgia. So we can figure out who to go interview. Go find them. OK. So, I just worked alongside her, in her house, for years. We did Baby Love, and that was amazing. We went to New York, and in Atlanta, we interviewed girls age 12 to 18 who had babies. It's a great film. It's 100 girls we talked to. And that really tied right into the kind of work that I was very interested in doing.RINK: And how long was the film?
MAY: It's about an hour long. It's a PBS hour, so it's 56:40, if I
01:31:00remember correctly.RINK: And so it aired on PBS?
MAY: Oh, it aired a lot on PBS. Yeah. Yeah. It may still air periodically. And
then, Carol and I together put together an application for a series, which was originally going to be six films, it ended up getting funded for two. And the series was about teen girls as well. And one of them was called Smile Pretty, which was also for PBS. And Smile Pretty was about teen girls in beauty pageants. And then we did Run Like A Girl, which was girl athletes. And the athletes were double Dutch jump ropers, synchronized swimmers, and rugby players. So we looked at athletes that were non-traditional athletes for girls to be in. So, and I was the co-producer and co-editor, and co-everything with her on those films. So that was a big portion of my life for a while. So in '97, I know it was -- yeah, it must have been like, '96, '97, '98, around that timeframe, because I know that in the first couple years of our 01:32:00marriage, I was gone for large chunks of time. Because I was gone shooting. So I know that that was part of the early years of our marriage.RINK: And have you maintained a working relationship with Carol?
MAY: Oh yeah, we did for a long time. Carol's now back up in -- she's in New
York, New Jersey, but we still are in touch. But yeah, we worked together a lot for many years, I adore her. And she was a huge mentor for me about how to produce, and how to approach sensitive communities with care. And her interviewing skills, in fact, I brought her in to train all of our artists for Women in War in the art of interviewing, because she has an excellent way of doing it. So, I've learned a tremendous amount of how to do sort of documentary style work, and also how to work in different communities, and how to do research, a tiny thing, Carol taught me this years ago, we were doing this beauty pageant piece, and we started the research about a month after JonBenet was killed, which was like, horrific to try and call beauty pageants and say I'm doing a story. And she said, I showed her a list of beauty pageants, she said, "Start with the one in Wisconsin." I said, "We don't want to go to Wisconsin, we said we want to go to here, here." She said, "I know you 01:33:00don't want to go to Wisconsin. Start with Wisconsin, and that way you can refine your pitch. So start the furthest away from where you want to go, get 10 or so calls in, because they're going to be pushing back against you, they're going to be fighting you." So that was like, great research advice. So any time I research something, I don't call the person I want first, I call the person I want least. So that I can get my spiel down before, you know, little things like that.RINK: That's good.
MAY: Yeah.
RINK: That's good. One thing I did -- it came back to me, getting back to
Synchronicity now. Talk to me a little bit about your feelings of sort of where the arts fit into the Atlanta community now. Particularly after the recession, funding concerns, funding issues, we've seen some theaters around the metro area close. Just talk to me about how it is to be in the theater world today, versus when you started out in '97.MAY: Yeah. You know, I don't know. I think we're still sort of trying to
figure out what it is now. I think it's as important, if not more important, 01:34:00than ever. But there's very little support. I mean, government support keeps going down. There have been so many efforts to engage the city, and the county, and the state in promoting the arts community, that have failed. And that have not gone anywhere, which is really discouraging, because I think we all know that it actually creates a lot of economic development here. So it's discouraging to see people try that over and over and over again, and have it not take root. And yet, there are so many more companies here now, and so, and they are surviving. And so, that's got to mean there's more people going to see them work. So, I think one thing I'm really proud of is that we started our family series, and there were no other theaters at that point doing like, consistent family series work. And I think ours was going so well that other theaters started to copy that. So Theater in the Square, before they went under, they started a family series program soon after we did, and actually hired the 01:35:00director we used to do a lot of the work, and the Alliance started their, you know, theater for youth. And so, I feel like that has grown a lot. So, I don't know. I feel like it's a more robust community. I think there's a lot more diversity, in terms of the type of work that you can see here, than when I first came.RINK: Is there anything else specifically about your life with Synchronicity
that you want to make sure we cover? Because I want to jump back to one other personal thing before we wrap up.MAY: Sure.
RINK: I just want to make sure if there's anything else you would like to make
sure is on the record.MAY: I don't think so, specifically. I mean I'm sure there's a million
other stories I can tell, but yeah.RINK: I think I may already know the answer, but just to wrap that section up,
I'm just curious, if you weren't at Synchronicity or weren't in the arts, or someone came in today and said OK, you cannot do theater anymore for your career, what would you do?MAY: Yeah, I think about that. [laughter] I certainly thought about that during
the recession, when I wasn't sure if I would still be doing my theater, you know, because we definitely had some tricky times. [laughter] I don't think I 01:36:00know how to look for something that makes a lot of money. So, I think maybe I would be a Montessori school teacher, is a possibility. I think also I'd be a really good, if I didn't have to like, do all the work to book it, because I'm just tired of that sort of thing, I think I'd be really good at being sort of a consultant or trainer for young people starting companies. I do a lot of that already, I talk to people all the time. Or, you know, doing -- I love doing like audition workshops with young actors, and that sort of thing. That's theater. But sort of business development, project development, and also like, working with sensitive communities, and I think I could be really good at going into other nonprofits and helping them see how to develop programs and how to get support for those programs, and that sort of thing. I don't know if that's officially a job but, you know, I think I would be good at that.RINK: That's good.
MAY: So. [laughter]
RINK: I do want to -- sort of as we get towards the end, jump back to your
01:37:00personal life, because you mentioned I had my first baby in the midst of Hope and --MAY: Oh yeah. Babies.
RINK: -- Michelle leaving, etc. So, I know you have three children now, so talk
a little bit about Harper, and then your two sons, when they were born, sort of what it's like being a mom versus what you thought it might be like.MAY: Sure. Yeah, our daughter was born in January of 2007. And our twin boys
[laughter] were born in October of 2009. And so, they're about to be four. And they are Felix and Elijah. And they're fun. I had no idea, I've always loved kids, I've always taught kids, as I said, I've always been a part of that world. So, I didn't really have any fear about kids. I did have fear about babies, because I had not had a lot of experience with babies, but my husband is the baby whisperer, and is excellent with newborns. So, I was very fortunate in that regard. I -- Daniel and I were very worried before we had kids, because we 01:38:00waited nine years to have kids. We thought, you know, our life's pretty cool, it's pretty nice. We can just go out, we can we can go have drinks, we can go, you know, so we were very worried about how it fit into our lives. And Tom Key, who runs Theatrical Outfit, we talked with him, because Tom Key happened to be onstage when Daniel proposed to me, because Daniel proposed to me during the curtain call of a Theatrical Outfit show that was in, called The Real Thing, in April of '97. And I was stage managing the show. And onstage, in that show, were Chris Kaiser and Rosemary Newcott, and Tom Key, and Harrison Long. And some other people I'm not remembering. Rosemary Newcott, all of whom had been married for many years, and were artist and all that. So it was kind of lovely that they were onstage while he proposed in front of an audience of 400 people. It was at [Peach Fuzz?]. But anyway, Tom Key said to us, he said, "You know what? You're never ready. So, stop waiting to be ready, you're never ready, 01:39:00you're never going to have the money you want to have, you're never going to have the time, you don't know how to do it until you do it. So just stop." So, we did it. You know, we also felt like, you know, time is ticking. I was 35, and so yeah, and then we thought -- I was very much on a strict two-child plan. I said, you know, we both were like, people who have more than two children are really irresponsible, and they're, you know, they're not doing a good thing, and they're crazy. And I have plenty of family members who have more than two children. So forgive me, everyone. But we thought that was really nuts. And so, we were, you know, very naturally trying for the second child. And we went for our first ultrasound, and the midwife said, "Well, I can't seem to get the other one to disappear." And we said, "The other one what?" [laughter] And so she said, "There's two." And I started saying, "No, no, no." And Daniel started laughing [inaudible]. And then I cried for a week. And so, yeah. 01:40:00But of course, once you have them, it's, well of course they're our family, I mean we couldn't possibly do without any of them. And so yeah, I don't know. I don't know what we thought, but it's insane. It's on every daily basis, it's insane. And some days we're on top of the boulder, and we're like oh, we got the lunches ready the night before, and everybody's got their clothes on, and everyone's clean and we're walking out the door. And sometimes we feel like the boulder is just plowing us over, and the house is a complete disaster. The house is always a complete disaster. And we're exhausted and we can't get any sleep, and we can't, you know, so I've got one at home right now with a 103 fever and, you know, so it's hard. I like the fact that I have a job that has flexibility even though it's a very intense job. So if I have to leave work at 2:30 and go pick the kids up, and spend the afternoon with them, which is a lovely gift, I can work at night. That night. And I have the flexibility to do that, as long as I get enough hours in, which is [inaudible] always work more than I need to. But I'm able to have that 01:41:00flexibility. So it's really, really hard. And then Daniel has an acting career, so sometimes he's just gone, and I have to do it single mom, or I'm gone, and he has to do it single dad. And that's just really tricky. It's really tricky. We have family, thank God.RINK: Yeah. How has being a mom impacted your work in theater, as a professional?
MAY: Yeah. I was pregnant with the boys when Daniel and I worked -- Daniel was
in a Synchronicity show called 123, which is a play that deals with three mothers who drown their babies, Susan Smith, and, why do I say her name wrong? Well Andrea Yates, and (inaudible). She's a Spanish woman from Mexico who was in Texas, I can't remember her name. [inaudible]. And so I was pregnant with the boys while we did that play. So Daniel was in the play, and I was directing it. And that was really, it impacted me tremendously. Because, you know, I think 01:42:00you could direct that play if you didn't have kids. But directing it when you have children and you can understand a parent getting to that point, and what that might mean. Like, because you can -- I think you can feel like it's maybe two steps away from where parents live. You know, whereas I think someone who hasn't had kids maybe might not have that empathy for the parents, where they're at in those moments. And so, I think it's just, I think it's just changed me, you know, as a human being. I just have a different understanding of the world than I did before. And it's also, I used to work, you know, 80 hours a week, or more. And you can't when you have kids. So, whereas you might be staying there after rehearsal longer and longer, and everyone's like, oh I've got to go, I've got to go. But I'm like, I really have to go because I have three little people whose hearts are going to be broken if I don't show up for dinner. And so, it's a really good, it was a very good -- the kids were actually a very good way of me keeping myself accountable. And I still failed 01:43:00them and Daniel all the time with that, and end up at work longer than I mean to and stuff. But they really helped me change my thinking about what's most important. Even though my work is very important to me, it's not the most important.RINK: It may be too young for the boys yet, but with Harper, are you getting any
inkling that she has an interest in the arts or the theater?MAY: Our kids are all totally theater babies. They have spent a lot of time
around theater, they've been seeing theater since they were born, and they -- what theater has done for them already is that they walk into a room and they'll walk up to any adult and say hello, and introduce themselves, and talk, and they're very, you know, comfortable, and, you know, because they've seen so many different people in their lives who have been strange and interesting. And Harper's definitely a performer. They're all pretty -- I mean, the plays that go on in our house are amazing. But Harper I think is a director. (laughter) Like she's constantly -- her dance teacher once at the 01:44:00recital, she said to the whole group, she said, "You know, every day of class, we have a free dance time. And one of our students is very good at helping all the students have a story to tell during free dance, and assigns roles to them." And I was like, I wonder who the student is. [laughter] She was like, "This is Harper May, our little director." So, yeah. I mean she -- and she gives notes when she comes to see Synchronicity run-throughs, she gives notes.RINK: Oh wow.
MAY: Not for the adult shows, she doesn't see those. But the kids shows. Oh,
I'll say one more quick thing about that. What's funny is if they come to see a show at a theater that's not my theater or Daddy's theater, the minute the play is done, they're trying to walk up onto the stage and backstage to go say hi to the actor, because that's what they're used to. We're like, we're at the Fox, you can't do that. We don't know these people, you know? So, it's kind of funny, their level of ownership over any theater space that they're in.RINK: Oh wow.
MAY: It's cool.
01:45:00RINK: I have one last question before we wrap up. Looking back over the course
of your time with Synchronicity, your time at Drew, your time in high school, all those experiences you've had, based on where you're sitting right now, if you could go back in a time machine and talk to yourself as a teen, what would you tell yourself? What advice would you give? Or would you have anything to say?MAY: I don't know.
RINK: Do you ever think about how your life has evolved, and what you would like
to have known 20, 30 years ago, that you, God, I know that now?MAY: Yeah, I mean I think I try to do that with young people that I talk to. I
do believe that our paths are directed somewhat, you know, and so I feel like even the missteps or the things I didn't know probably lead me to lessons that got me to where I am now. I mean, if I hadn't followed a boy to Georgia, I wouldn't have this theater company, I wouldn't have my husband, I wouldn't have these children. So, but if I had gone to myself and said, go move to 01:46:00Georgia, that's going to be a good plan, I would have been like, hell no. So, I don't know. I don't think so. I mean I think maybe in college, I feel like there's a couple of work-related experiences I probably could have garnered that were a little more robust in terms of making connections in the industry. But I did that a little later on when I got a two-year fellowship, you know, with a national organization. So I don't know. I don't think I have a, no, I don't think I have a...RINK: Is there anything else --
MAY: Maybe make a lot of money before you go into running a theater company. I
might have said that.RINK: Win the lottery.
MAY: Win the lottery. [laughter] Go into a very lucrative career for five years,
bank it all, and then start a theater company.RINK: Is there anything else that you would like to say, or talk about before we
wrap up?MAY: I don't think so. It's been a very interesting walk down [laughter] my
life. It's very strange. No, I don't think I have anything specific that we missed. 01:47:00RINK: OK. Well as I said, you'll have a chance to look through the transcripts
and correct any spellings, maybe fill in some names that you forgot.MAY: Yeah. Plain Sight Productions, that's what they were called. Plain Sight Productions.
RINK: Well anyway, well thank you for taking the time Rachel to do the interview.
MAY: Sure, it's my pleasure.
RINK: And I'm sure the students, and the people who come and use the archives
here at Georgia State will find it very useful.