A Reflection on Spark in St. Louis

Conservatory of Theatre Arts, Webster University, St. Louis

November 20, 2012 

Directed by Michael Fling

                            by Michael Fling 

When I first received the draft of Spark, I was immediately nervous. Such contemporary pieces are not really my forte, and the topic of veterans returning home was not something I knew firsthand. However, at the core, Spark’s story is about family, and I’m a sucker for a good family drama. As the actors and I began to explore the text, we found how natural the dialogue was and how deeply we could go with the language. Since we did minimal staging, it was a treat for us to dive into the text and see how much we could bring out in the words. Because of this process, I felt liberated as a director and I really loved being able to share our finished product. However, it was the audience response that really made all of the work worthwhile. We were fortunate enough to have a group of female veterans attend the performance. After the reading, they walked up to our actors with tears in their eyes, with nothing but positive things to say about the play and our work and how important is was to them. Their reaction is what I’ll take away from the reading. At the end of the day, sharing veterans’ stories and their struggles proved more important to me than worrying about more elaborate staging or more perfectly crafted moments. As one of our audience members pointed out, “It’s refreshing to hear a story about war focused on female relationships and the personal sacrificing of families during and post war time.” We were grateful for the opportunity to participate in a project that allowed us to illuminate such stories and such heroes.