Interview with Nagle Jackson

On September 17, 1999, between rehearsals of the October 1999 Denver Center Theatre Company world-premiere of his play, A Hotel on Marvin Gardens, I had the opportunity to speak with Nagle Jackson, an award-winning playwright, long-time director, and stabilizing presence with the DCTC.

In the period from October 1998 to October 1999, the DCTC, winner of the 1998 Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre, produced two of his plays, The Elevation of Thieves and A Hotel on Marvin Gardens. In the same period, he directed them both plus a third, Travels With My Aunt, by Graham Greene and adapted for the stage by Giles Havergal. He also directs during summers in Santa Fe, teaches classes in New York, and still spends a season each year creating new plays at his New Jersey home. Sounds like a busy guy ... but a guy delighted to be keeping busy at what he loves.

His Background

NJ:

My relationship with this company goes back to its pre-Denver days, when Donovan Marley [DCTC Artistic Director] was the Artistic Director of the Pacific Conservatory Performing Arts in Santa Maria, California, which he was throughout the '70s. That used to be summer camp for ACT [American Conservatory Theatre] in San Francisco, and I go way back. My directorial career began with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and then with ACT, before I became Artistic Director of the Milwaukee Rep and then the McCarter in Princeton. So I was doing shows for Donovan in those days. Then for a long period of time I was so busy with my other companies that I didn't get here when he moved to Denver. In 1990, I stepped down from the artistic directorship of the McCarter, because 20 years of running theaters was enough. I was tired of the fund raising and board meetings and all the other stuff that you do, and I also had this ... more than an itch ... I'd already written a couple of plays that had been produced and I knew that's what I really wanted to do. At any rate, I started here in Denver, I think the first show I did for them was in '90 or '91, a musical for which I wrote the book and lyrics, a musical version of They Shoot Horses, Don't They? And then I became a regular director here, doing most of their Moliere productions and some other stuff as well. And then four or five years ago we did a play of mine called The Quick-Change Room, which is playing as we speak in Hong Kong, except that the storm yesterday must have shut them down. It's playing in Hong Kong. It's played in New York, it's played in Chicago, and played for eight months in Los Angeles. It was a big hit in L.A. At that time, some of my work was being produced elsewhere. The Oregon Shakespeare Festival has done two of my plays, This Day And Age, and a play called Moliere Plays Paris. At any rate, with the success of Quick-Change Room, then we followed up with a play of mine called Taking Leave, about Alzheimer's, which was two years ago, and then even before that I had written The Elevation of Thieves, which won an award and was produced here last year. This play, A Hotel on Marvin Gardens, we were not expecting to do for maybe another year or more. And we did a reading of it at the US WEST [Theatre] Fest and it was extremely successful. So they called me about two weeks afterwards. I was down in Santa Fe. I direct in the summers in Santa Fe at a theater called Shakeapeare in Santa Fe. I'm the principal director. And they called and said, "We think we want to slot Marvin for next season." It was a big surprise. But I'm glad, I mean, I'm delighted. So, anyway, that's my background with Denver theatre. First as a director, and then little by little as a playwright.

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