A Rollergirl and a Rapper

Stage

IF YOUR THEATER VISITS are mostly to venues like the Old Globe and La Jolla Playhouse, you probably haven’t been aware of Esther Emery. If, however, you frequent our area’s superb smaller theaters, you’ve likely seen one of her smartly directed productions, like Yellowman and Communicating Doors for Cygnet. Or Hecuba for 6th@Penn. Or Limonade Tous les Jours and Devil Dog Six for Moxie.

Emery, 28, is already one of our town’s top directors. And now she’s a playwright. Her first full-length script, Rhubarb, or How to Play with a Rollergirl, is about to be staged by Moxie (February 7–March 9 at the Lyceum downtown). It’s a romantic comedy, and Emery says the Rollergirl (no connection to the character in the film Boogie Nights) is just a pal of the protagonist. But her key role inspired the subtitle, which for a time was the advertised title. Rhubarb, Emery explains, refers to a chemistry experiment in the play that is also “a metaphor for romantic chemistry.”

Although part of a family of writers, Emery found creating a script difficult. “Writing the play took almost two years,” she says. “I have a strong visual sense but wasn’t getting that down on paper.” She sought help from Delicia Taylor Sonnenberg, one of Moxie’s founders and herself a mighty talented director. “We had a reading,” Emery says, “and agreed it should not be put before an audience.” She got discouraged and ignored the script for about two months. When she picked it up again, she decided to cut about 30 pages——“and then I had a play.” She’s happy Sonnenberg will direct. “She’s someone I trust,” she says, adding with a laugh, “and she can also be ruthless.”

Emery’s close work with Moxie led to her becoming an associate artist with the organization, but she’ll continue working all over town. In March, she’ll direct Brian Friel’s Dancing at Lughnasa for New Village Arts.

And she’s maintaining her busy schedule despite being a new mother. Son Milo was born in August, just as Communicating Doors was opening. Fortuitously, on most assignments she can take him along, and the Moxie women, in particular, are welcoming to kids.

Emery’s husband——and frequent scenic designer——is Nick Fouch, who’s polishing his own sterling reputation in local theater. They met at the University of Idaho, which Emery entered at 15, intending to become a doctor. But she took a variety of courses, eventually being drawn to theater. She quips, “In the theater school, he and I were the most driven. We were a perfect match.”

They moved to San Diego in 2000, and Emery got work as a stage manager for the Old Globe. She loved the chance to see outstanding directors working “an arm’s length away.” It took years, she says, before she developed the confidence to direct. “I have such respect for actors,” she says, “and I wanted to be sure I knew what I was doing.

“My learning curve,” she notes gratefully, “wasn’t visible to an audience.”

AS RAPPER NAMES GO, Will Power is a pretty tame one. But actually, the holder of that name is anything but tame. He’s an actor, composer, writer and lecturer who’s been infusing theater with the poetry and rhythms of hip-hop, notably in The Seven, coming to La Jolla Playhouse February 12–March 16. It’s Power’s reworking of Aeschylus’ Seven Against Thebes, in which the two sons of Oedipus struggle for the throne of Thebes.

The script is done entirely in rhyming verse (shades of Molière) and features music by Power, Will Hammond and Justin Ellington and choreography by Bill T. Jones, all sung and danced in a variety of styles. In its successful off-Broadway run in 2006, it inspired one ecstatic reviewer to suggest that hip-hop could save theater.

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