Andrew J Merkel
Artistic Vision:
Seeing people tell the truth onstage is, for me, like raw red meat is for a dog; I need it, it thrills me, and I can't resist it. Making the truth happen onstage is the same; thrilling, irresistable and utterly necessary. I have been broadsided by stage work, and returned to the world, my head spinning, knocked a little bit off kilter. Just off kilter enough to have a new twist to my thinking, a new approach to the world added to my lexicon. My work lives in that turn, that moment of shock that happens when the precision and rigor and truth of a moment hits like a bucket of water in the face. I find the surprises in a script and open them up for an audience, letting them be inside of them with the performers and with the language, letting them be a little twisted around, just enough to change them in the slightest way, sending the work the ensemble has done out into the world with them. The way that I work toward these moments uses as fully as possible all of the possibilities of the medium. I have not shied away from ensemble created text, but have found that more traditional plays written by playwrights are more effective for me. I am not intimidated by the technology of the theatre, it being another valuable puzzle piece in creating the moment of surprise. I also work with new plays, hoping to show a surprise that while, as with all surprises, we recognize it in the jelly inside of our bones, we certainly have not yet read it in a classroom. I have also worked to bring in non-theatrical collaborators, from musicians to visual artists to interpreters for the deaf, to people off the street, thinking that they will help create the twist, to help us not see something traditionally like a play, but to create a theatrical event that pushes the boundaries of our thinking. All of this goes back to telling truths, comfortable or uncomfortable. The truth has always shocked me, and I hope to offer others the same kind of electrifying frisson that the recognition of truth gives me when I see it twisted inside out like a sea-cucumber in a specimen jar.
Education:
B.A. Lycoming College 1999 -Theatre (Directing Concentration) -German Literature and Culture M.A. Villanova University 2002 -Theatre
Directing Biography:
Andrew J. Merkel is a Philadelphia-based director focusing on developing new work. In Philadelphia, Merkel has directed plays for Azuka Theatre Collective, The Cardboard Box Collaborative, Tribe of Fools, and for a host of other small and emerging companies throughout the Philadelphia region. Regionally, Merkel’s work has been seen in Austin, Baltimore, Washington DC, Boston, and New York. Andrew is a member of Lincoln Center Theatre's Director's Lab, Philadelphia Dramatist's Center and has been an Artistic Associate at Lantern Theater Company. Andrew holds a BA in Theatre and German from Lycoming College, and an M.A. in Theatre from Villanova University. Andrew has directed plays at Drexel University and works as the Production Assistant at Swarthmore College's Lang Performing Arts Center.