Meet Vivienne Benesch

Vivienne shares her thoughts on joining PlayMakers Repertory Company as our new Producing Artistic Director

Photo by Alison Sheehy

Dear Friends,

Greetings of expectation!

It’s been my privilege to direct three productions for PlayMakers: Sarah Ruhl’s In the Next Room (or the vibrator play) in 2011, John Logan’s Red in 2012 and Deborah Salem Smith’s Love Alone in 2014. And I’m extremely excited to bring you the premiere of Libby Appel’s version of Chekhov’s Three Sisters in January as I begin my new role as your Producing Artistic Director.

It’s rare to discover a profound affinity with an organization—its artistic mission, its community, its artists and its values. But such was the case, I happily found, here at PlayMakers from the first time I stepped off the plane at RDU.

What life journey brought me here? Well, I dove into theater at a very early age, actually wanting to become a dancer, like both my mother and grandmother, but with flat feet that wasn’t in the cards. A life engaged with words, movement, ideas, space and emotions, however, was. In other words, my life has been a thread of stories. And moreover, I've been very privileged to make a career of storytelling. 

I went to Brown University, where I studied both Theater and Religious Studies, and while there directed far more than I acted. After graduation, however, I decided to pursue my MFA in Acting, having been wisely advised that that was without a doubt the best training for a career in either acting or directing. So I attended NYU's Graduate Acting Program, where I was lucky enough to study under the leadership of Zelda Fichandler, a fierce female icon of the regional theater movement in America. It was during those years that I learned not only about the craft of acting, but also about what I value most about collaboration: that diverse voices make for better art, better audiences and better conversation.

My professional journey over the last twenty years has been multi-faceted. After graduate school, I had several successful years acting professionally, winning an OBIE Award, working on and off Broadway, regionally and in the West End (with Maggie Smith! I've got some stories...) But my lifelong passion for directing was rekindled in 2001 when I helmed a production of The Skin of Our Teeth for the Chautauqua Theater Company. The die was (re)cast, and I began directing and acting simultaneously. I became Artistic Director of the theater at Chautauqua in 2005 and have had the pleasure of leading its transformation into one of the best summer theaters and most competitive summer conservatories in the country. Now, after ten wonderful years at Chautauqua, I’m eager to serve PlayMakers and this community in a year-round capacity. PlayMakers and Chautauqua have much in common. They are both embedded within institutions that truly value the role that the arts and arts education play in the investigation of what it means to be human and a citizen of the globe...one of the many reasons I already feel such a great affinity for this organization.

I believe I have an innate understanding of—and vision for—the role this great theater plays not only in the national arts scene, but also as a cultural center for its local and regional community, as an integral part of a professional training program within UNC’s exceptional Department of Dramatic Art and, indeed, as an essential resource for the University at large. I can’t wait to begin the great work of leading PlayMakers forward on all these fronts.

As a director, actor and producer, I am as much at home with the classics, modern masterpieces and brand new work and have a particular interest in originating interdisciplinary collaborations—among theater, dance, music and visual artists. I love to create spaces and opportunities for artists to collide fearlessly with one another. I also love to facilitate theatrical experiences for audiences and communities to collide with art—to let that art shed light on our humanity, and to provoke dialogue and debate. To ensure that the highest quality art is accessible to audiences of all ages and backgrounds, and to provide a forum that embraces our diverse histories as a means of discovering our common ground as we forge into the future.

The face of America is changing. I am humbled with the charge of serving this great company in a time that I believe will see great transformation in the American Theater—no longer holding up a mirror to just a narrow view of nature—but to the expansive reality of what the human race actually looks like and experiences today. And we're lucky, because PlayMakers is the perfect home for such a collision of art and change to take hold.

Building on its already excellent programming and reputation, PlayMakers stands poised to become one of this country’s theater jewels—a leader in the cultural conversations of the 21st Century. It will be my honor to bring you my passion, invention and dedication in this next leg of the journey.

I look forward to being with you soon, at home in Chapel Hill!

Vivienne Benesch

Composing Music for "Love Alone"

By Peter Mark Kendall, Composer for Love Alone

Peter Mark Kendall

I was thrilled when Vivienne Benesch approached me to do the music for Love Alone. I composed a few songs for the premiere production at Trinity Rep two years ago, but my involvement was pretty minimal. So, in the PlayMakers production, I've created every piece of music in the play. This time around, I wanted to create a sense of what Clementine's music sounds like - something complex, intelligent, fun, and visceral - while still keeping in mind the other characters, and the medical and personal worlds that exist in the play. It's Clem's music, but hopefully it tells everyone's story. I've also tried to create tonal shifts in the music, so as the play progresses, the music helps carve out the emotional journeys that the characters experience. The audience might hear music influences such as Wye Oak, Buke and Gase, Pedro the Lion. 

Thanks to PlayMakers for being a wonderful place to work. Enjoy! 

Arielle Yoder as Clementine. Photo by Jon Gardiner.

Vision Series: Love Alone

Join us February 19th in the Paul Green Theatre for the next installment of the Vision Series.


Come and learn about a production in process while enjoying some delicious hors d'oeuvres through this hugely popular series. Meet Love Alone director Vivienne Benesch and get a behind-the-scenes look at the design and vision for this production.


Vision Series events are free and begin at 6:30pm.

6:30pm - 7:15pm - A conversation with the artists
7:15pm - 8:00pm - Refreshments in the lobby

Vivienne Benesch and Deborah Salem Smith discuss "Love Alone"

Director Vivienne Benesch and playwright Deborah Salem Smith discuss staging the regional premiere of Love Alone at PlayMakers.

Vivienne Benesch & Deborah Salem Smith

VB: My previous productions at PlayMakers were In The Next Room by Sarah Ruhl and Red by John Logan. Both are exceptional contemporary plays, but both are set in the past and explore either historical characters (Rothko) or inventions (the vibrator). One of the things I’m most looking forward to about Love Alone is working on an amazing new play about now, about people just like us.

DSS:  Well, one thing we all have in common is that everyone will be a patient at some point.  In light of that truth, this play takes on one of my personal fears. A character loses her partner of 20 years––so I confront that possibility through fiction. The story begins when a routine hospital surgery goes tragically wrong, then tracks the emotional and legal aftermath for both the victim’s and the doctor’s families. I focus on four characters, and how fiercely they love whomever they love. A marriage in one case; a mother-daughter relationship in another. The title of my play comes from an Edna St. Vincent Millay poem that begins “love is not all.”  But then, of course, the poem goes on to prove––when we really must choose what we care most about––love is all.

VB: Love Alone confronts emotional and ethical dilemmas that are extremely topical and timely. Did you mean to write something so “today”?

DSS: To be honest, not really!  [Laughter.]  I write a play out of personal hunger for a topic. And sometimes it happens to land at a moment when our communities are debating these same ideas––so this play happens to arrive as we debate these essential questions. Should laws protect doctors who want to apologize? How should we reform our health care system? Do lawsuits empower victims and thus aid the grieving process? Or does a lawsuit disrupt that process?  Does forgiveness require remorse or an apology by the offender?  

VB: It’s very rare to see a play (or film or TV show) using malpractice as an anchor for the plot that is not exclusively told from one “side” or the other.

DSS: I’m drawn to stories that let audiences bear witness to the humanness of every person involved––where your sympathy bubbles up unexpectedly, where there are no black and white answers. 

VB: You certainly accomplish that in Love Alone. Audiences can identify with the compelling struggles of all the characters––the family of the deceased and the doctor who was charged with her care. The play is ultimately about the process of grieving and forgiveness—between mother and daughter, husband and wife, doctor and patient. And you manage to make it simultaneously compassionate, unsentimental, heartbreaking, and even funny!

DSS: Of course it’s certainly a play where people are journeying through grief, but there also has to be very real joy. Even in our hardest hours we experience a range of complex feelings. There can be laughter at a funeral. There can be loneliness at a wedding. So it was essential to write some big, joyous scenes into the story.

VB: Let’s not give away any more than that for now!  What about doing Love Alone at PlayMakers makes you most excited?

DSS: I’m coming home. I was inspired to write about forgiveness because of a powerful choice my beloved grandmother made. She lived on a farm in Burnsville, North Carolina. And I grew up in Charlotte. I left North Carolina after high school. So it’s exciting to return home to share my play in this place, where I still have so many friends and family members. 

VB: Well, I can’t wait for the discussions this story is going to ignite. The Triangle community has such an incredible intellectual presence to engage with the issues of Love Alone. With the wonderful group of creative artists we’ve assembled and rehearsals underway, I can't wait for PlayMakers audiences to join us!

Deborah Salem Smith grew up in Charlotte, North Carolina. She is now the playwright-in-residence at Trinity Repertory Company, in Providence, Rhode Island. Love Alone premiered at Trinity Rep, and received an Edgerton Foundation New American Play Award as well as an Honorable Mention by the Jane Chambers Playwriting Award.

Vivienne is in her tenth season as Artistic Director of the renowned Chautauqua Theater Company and Conservatory. Recently she directed a highly acclaimed re-imagining of Romeo and Juliet featuring Chautauqua, New York’s symphony, theatre, opera and dance companies.She previously directed In The Next Room (or the vibrator play) by Sarah Ruhl and Red by John Logan at PlayMakers.

Vivienne Benesch on "In the Next Room"

Its title is titillating. Its subject matter, unusual. So what exactly is going on with In the Next Room (or the vibrator play), the Playmakers' first mainstage production of the season?

"It's a combination of sex farce and a Chekhov play with a little bit of Ibsen," says director Vivienne Benesch. "But from a female voice."

Vivienne Benesch

Ms. Benesch, an actress and director who also serves as the artistic director of the Chautauqua Theater Company in New York, calls the show "one of the funniest and most moving contemporary plays which deals with contemporary issues, many of which continue to go unspoken today." She explains that though the show is set in the 1880s, she hopes that audiences will "laugh and recognize themselves in both the humor and the struggles of the characters."

"It's about human connection," she says of the show's theme. "It doesn't matter how much electricity you have in technological form if you don't have that connection in human form."

In the Next Room (or the vibrator play) runs from September 21 to October 9, 2011. Click here for more details.