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This is Cedar Cathedral, a podcast about
Steve Hendershot:artistry, craftsmanship and the creative life in the Great
Steve Hendershot:Lakes. I’m Steve Hendershot, along with Clare Hendershot,
Steve Hendershot:from The Diving Bell, our band in Chicago. Welcome to Season
Steve Hendershot:Two.
Steve Hendershot:The operas directed by Matthew Ozawa are notable for their
Steve Hendershot:playfulness, their imagination and their dreamlike quality. For
Steve Hendershot:stages festooned with giant babies and rubber duckies, or a
Steve Hendershot:long skirt made of thick chains suspended from the ceiling, or
Steve Hendershot:wigs so enormous that they can and do contain ocean-faring tall
Steve Hendershot:ships.
Matthew Ozawa:I love a world on stage where anything can happen
Matthew Ozawa:at any moment. It’s so very magical. And the idea of
Matthew Ozawa:dreamscapes to me have always been fascinating.
Clare Hendershot:It’s a style that he’s been developing since
Clare Hendershot:high school, when he discovered Japanese Kabuki theater while
Clare Hendershot:traveling around Asia as an American kid attending a British
Clare Hendershot:high school in Singapore.
Matthew Ozawa:Kabuki theater, you can change someone’s costume
Matthew Ozawa:in two seconds. They have like all these riggings and costumes
Matthew Ozawa:on the set where, like, you pull a string and suddenly you went
Matthew Ozawa:from like a white kimono to a pink kimono, or this person
Matthew Ozawa:moves through all these traps and suddenly appears somewhere
Matthew Ozawa:else on the stage.
Steve Hendershot:You might be tempted to think of Matthew’s
Steve Hendershot:career like that, too, marked by magical bursts of light and wild
Steve Hendershot:flashes of inspiration. It makes sense, when you consider how
quickly he’s risen:Matthew is just 34, and that this weekend
quickly he’s risen:he’s directing his second show of 2016 at the Lyric Opera of
quickly he’s risen:Chicago—to go along with other operas in Minneapolis, Houston,
quickly he’s risen:D.C., and Santa Fe, as well as concerts at Carnegie Hall and
quickly he’s risen:the Kennedy Center—and again, that's all just this year. But
quickly he’s risen:the striking thing about Matthew’s career, I suppose like
quickly he’s risen:any good bit of stagecraft, is that what’s happening behind the
quickly he’s risen:curtain isn’t magic but technique and discipline, along
quickly he’s risen:with a strange willingness to quit great jobs over and over
quickly he’s risen:again, usually at the Lyric.
Matthew Ozawa:I mean, they joke now because I have left three
Matthew Ozawa:different times. One of my friends she looked me up and she
Matthew Ozawa:was like, 'Here in 2000-whatever you said goodbye to the company,
Matthew Ozawa:Then you came back, and here in whatever you said goodbye to the
Matthew Ozawa:company again, like you kind of keep saying goodbye.' At the
Matthew Ozawa:same time the opera world kept bringing me back.
Clare Hendershot:On this episode of Cedar Cathedral we’ll
Clare Hendershot:head backstage at the opera house to chronicle Matthew’s
Clare Hendershot:peculiar path to the director’s chair.
Steve Hendershot:We are back, and we’re excited to be back
Steve Hendershot:with a second set of stories about people pursuing the
Steve Hendershot:creative life in the Great Lakes. This season, we’ll
Steve Hendershot:introduce you not only to talented artists, but we'l also
Steve Hendershot:peek into some fascinating corners of the creative world,
Steve Hendershot:including today’s foray into opera.
Clare Hendershot:We’ve also got some great music lined up,
Clare Hendershot:starting with the Grammy-winning contemporary classical ensemble
Clare Hendershot:Eighth Blackbird.
Steve Hendershot:Thank you so much for joining us. And please
Steve Hendershot:help us to build our show and community by subscribing, by
Steve Hendershot:reviewing Cedar Cathedral in iTunes, and sharing it with your
Steve Hendershot:friends. And also, while we are firm believers that we are
Steve Hendershot:living and participating in a second golden age of audio, it’s
Steve Hendershot:worth noting that if you happen to be a visual type, you can
Steve Hendershot:visit cedarcathedral.com or check out our Cedar Cathedral
Steve Hendershot:Instagram to get a sense of what these people look like. And in
Steve Hendershot:Matthew Ozawa’s case, it’s absolutely worth it to get a
Steve Hendershot:sense of the visual flair of his productions.
Clare Hendershot:Speaking of Matthew, let’s get back to his
Clare Hendershot:story.
Steve Hendershot:The early years of a career in opera
Steve Hendershot:direction are not glamorous. You’re moving around from city
Steve Hendershot:to city, show to show, trying to make a living and build a
Steve Hendershot:resume. None of it comes easy, including just finding a place
Steve Hendershot:to stay for a month-long run. Right out of college, Matthew
Steve Hendershot:used Craigslist, with mixed results. There was a place in
Steve Hendershot:Santa Fe where squirrels ran through the living room. And
Steve Hendershot:then a place in Chicago where his roommates made him miss
Steve Hendershot:those squirrels.
Matthew Ozawa:After a couple weeks living there they knocked
Matthew Ozawa:on my door late at night and they said, 'Hey, dude, we’ve
Matthew Ozawa:never talked to anyone about this before, but we’re wondering
Matthew Ozawa:if we could bring clients home.’ And I said ‘Clients! Oh, like
Matthew Ozawa:you make your own jewelry online and you want people to see it?’
Matthew Ozawa:I’m like ‘Yeah, sure!’ And they said, 'Oh no no no, like we
Matthew Ozawa:charge $250 for a half hour, we come as a package.' I’m like,
Matthew Ozawa:'Mmm, wait, so you’re prosti…'
Steve Hendershot:Within a couple weeks, Matthew was
Steve Hendershot:sleeping at the opera house.
Clare Hendershot:Yet somehow it worked out, because by the time
Clare Hendershot:he was 24 he’d earned a coveted, full-time position at the Lyric
Clare Hendershot:as an assistant stage manager. It wasn’t his dream job, but he
Clare Hendershot:was young and it was in the right building.
Steve Hendershot:So, let’s talk about assistant stage managing.
Steve Hendershot:If stage managers are like traffic cops, making sure all
Steve Hendershot:the props and people move smoothly on and off stage, then
Steve Hendershot:assistant stage managers are like the crossing guard. As
Steve Hendershot:in—you, get out there, now, and remember to carry the
Steve Hendershot:pearl-handled dagger in your left hand. This job can be hard,
Steve Hendershot:and it was during Matthew’s first year at the Lyric.
Matthew Ozawa:They put me on Doctor Atomic by John Adams and
Matthew Ozawa:Die Frau Ohne Schatten by Strauss. Both pieces which are
Matthew Ozawa:really hard musically and I was one of the few people that could
Matthew Ozawa:read the music, so for Doctor Atomic I actually was like over
Matthew Ozawa:the headset with a little maestro cam and I would keep
Matthew Ozawa:everyone on the music.
Clare Hendershot:So what helps Matthew succeed in this first
Clare Hendershot:job at the Lyric Opera isn’t his grand artistic vision, but his
Clare Hendershot:technical chops. He’s really good at reading music.
Steve Hendershot:So at this point Matthew is firmly
Steve Hendershot:entrenched on the ground floor at the Lyric. He excels at stage
Steve Hendershot:management. But his response to earning a little job security is
Steve Hendershot:to pull out, for the first time, his secret weapon in terms of
Steve Hendershot:career strategy. He quits.
Unknown:And I said hey thank you Lyric, it’s been wonderful.
Unknown:I don’t want to be in stage management, so I’m going to move
Unknown:forward. I think that’s always kind of been my M.O. Maybe it’s
Unknown:bad, I don’t know, but my M.O. has always been if I’ve reached
Unknown:a plateau in whatever I’m learning, then I just move on to
Unknown:the next thing.
Steve Hendershot:And in this case, it worked like a charm.
Matthew Ozawa:And then they said, “what do you want to do?”
Matthew Ozawa:Well, I said, I want to assistant-direct. “Great, you’re
Matthew Ozawa:coming back next year as an assistant director.”
Clare Hendershot:Matthew had reached the next level. It was
Clare Hendershot:great news except for one thing.
Matthew Ozawa:I mean, assistant directing sucks. It is the worst
Matthew Ozawa:job on the planet.
Steve Hendershot:Okay, quick primer on assistant directing.
Steve Hendershot:As an assistant director, you’re out of the traffic cop business.
Steve Hendershot:But if moving the performers on and off stage sounded
Steve Hendershot:complicated, well, now you’re in charge of juggling a zillion
Steve Hendershot:arcane contract regulations dictating everything from how
Steve Hendershot:often and how long the orchestra gets to take a break, to how
Steve Hendershot:many people are required to help carry a table that moves on and
Steve Hendershot:off the set. You’re also in charge of making sure the
Steve Hendershot:director is happy, while also making sure the soloists are
Steve Hendershot:holding it together in what are invariably high-stress
Steve Hendershot:situations.
Matthew Ozawa:You know, there are times I feel my job
Matthew Ozawa:sometimes as an AD is also to be a therapist. You’re like helping
Matthew Ozawa:people through these phases of their life where they’re singing
Matthew Ozawa:at the top companies and the pressure is so incredibly high.
Matthew Ozawa:Their voice is their instrument, and the minute it starts to go
Matthew Ozawa:wrong — they start to crack, they’re a little flat — they’re
Matthew Ozawa:kind of like on thin ice. And I think that’s really hard to
Matthew Ozawa:emotionally go through over and over again, and to moving from
Matthew Ozawa:city to city to city. Which also, in some respects, makes me
Matthew Ozawa:feel better when they freak out. When they do yell, when they
Matthew Ozawa:need their water. I mean, there are many times where a singer
Matthew Ozawa:has had a lozenge in their mouth, they have to get rid of
Matthew Ozawa:it, and so I’m like, put out my hand, and, like, ‘Here,’ and
Matthew Ozawa:they spit it in my hand. I mean it’s just like, okay, you’ve got
Matthew Ozawa:to do what you’ve got to do. Fine, I'll take your spitty
Matthew Ozawa:lozenge from you.
Clare Hendershot:Matthew turned out to be a great assistant
Clare Hendershot:director. He also found it really hard to be that close to
Clare Hendershot:the director’s chair without getting to sit there.
Matthew Ozawa:When you really want to be making art and you’re
Matthew Ozawa:watching it happen over and over and over, and in situations
Matthew Ozawa:where you do not agree with it or it’s not great art, that is
Matthew Ozawa:when it really kills your soul.
Steve Hendershot:But this is where the apprenticeship ethic
Steve Hendershot:of opera really paid off for him. He didn’t really like
Steve Hendershot:assistant directing, but he did use the experience to learn how
Steve Hendershot:to become a better director. He fought that impulse to move on
Steve Hendershot:because he knew he had first, he had to master his trade.
Matthew Ozawa:I would try to stage it in the style of
Matthew Ozawa:whatever director I was working with. So it was invaluable. I
Matthew Ozawa:mean, really, I don’t think I could be where I am right now if
Matthew Ozawa:I actually hadn’t done all of those steps. And there were many
Matthew Ozawa:times where I hated it, and I thought you know what, why am I
Matthew Ozawa:not directing? I should be directing. I’m going to quit. I
Matthew Ozawa:don’t want to do this. But, you know, you kind of like pay your
Matthew Ozawa:dues, and and there’s now skills that I have that I really would
Clare Hendershot:And after a few years of assistant
Clare Hendershot:never have had if I hadn’t assisted.
Clare Hendershot:directing, everything started coming together. And once he was
Clare Hendershot:consistently excelling at the job, that’s when Matthew knew it
Clare Hendershot:was time—to quit again.
Steve Hendershot:Seriously, though, quitting was a brilliant
Steve Hendershot:move here. Because assistant director-hood is the sort of
Steve Hendershot:place where aspiring directors can inadvertently spend their
Steve Hendershot:entire careers. You get a reputation for helping directors
Steve Hendershot:achieve their visions, and people forget you have your own
Steve Hendershot:vision. In 2013, Matthew left the Lyric to start a performing
Steve Hendershot:arts collaborative called Mozawa. Mozawa does the sort of
Steve Hendershot:avant garde, experimental work that he wasn’t getting to do
Steve Hendershot:within opera. For example, this spring Mozawa produced a show
Steve Hendershot:featuring self-portraits from 55 different millennial artists,
Steve Hendershot:each working in the medium of their choice.
Matthew Ozawa:The art of collaboration is very, very
Matthew Ozawa:difficult. Most people don’t know where to start, or how to
Matthew Ozawa:actually chisel through the sort of wall that is in between their
Matthew Ozawa:collaborators. And so part of my task and job in helping others
Matthew Ozawa:create is looking at things from a much broader vision and
Matthew Ozawa:perspective. And I think having been and dabbled in so many art
Matthew Ozawa:forms, I’m able to swap back and forth between other people’s
Matthew Ozawa:brains and mediums to be like 'Okay, how are you now seeing
Matthew Ozawa:it? Now let me try to translate that into your language to help
Matthew Ozawa:you understand their language.' And that is something that I
Matthew Ozawa:actually really love and it’s actually really a part of my
Matthew Ozawa:directing style, to bring out people’s strengths and take
Matthew Ozawa:their weaknesses and make them strengths.
Clare Hendershot:This work was gratifying on its own, but it
also had a serious side benefit:
:showing the opera folks that
also had a serious side benefit:
:Matthew Ozawa wasn’t just an assistant director, but a
also had a serious side benefit:
:capital-A artist. Someone with directorial potential.
Matthew Ozawa:Suddenly they thought, 'Oh wait, this kid
Matthew Ozawa:isn’t just — he’s not just good at scheduling. Like, wow, he has
Matthew Ozawa:this company and it looks really fascinating and it’s unusual and
Matthew Ozawa:it has this following and people are you know doing interesting
Matthew Ozawa:things.' Suddenly people saw me in a different light.
Clare Hendershot:Now Matthew is a rising-star director, working
Clare Hendershot:around the country and world. This Saturday, he returns to the
Clare Hendershot:Lyric Opera of Chicago for the first of six fall performances
Clare Hendershot:of Don Quichotte, a little-known, hundred-year-old
Clare Hendershot:French opera based on Miguel Cervantes’ 400-year-old novel
Clare Hendershot:about the romantic, star-crossed adventurer Don Quixote.
Steve Hendershot:Don Quixote is famous for his, well, quixotic
Steve Hendershot:wandering. But his meandering path has nothing on Matthew
Steve Hendershot:Ozawa. The difference is that in the opera—spoiler alert—Don
Steve Hendershot:Quichotte dies on a mountain pass attended only by his loyal
Steve Hendershot:squire. Matthew, on the other hand, is just getting started.
Steve Hendershot:The question for Matthew is, now that he’s finally not just
Steve Hendershot:sitting in the director’s chair but has all the directing work
Steve Hendershot:he can handle, how will he develop and refine his emerging
Steve Hendershot:directorial style? Expect to see his personality come through, in
Steve Hendershot:terms of a production aesthetic, sure, but also in terms of the
Steve Hendershot:spirit he’s brought to his career—never standing still,
Steve Hendershot:never allowing himself to be content.
Matthew Ozawa:I find that people need to be pushed,
Matthew Ozawa:especially when it comes to the arts. They don’t know what
Matthew Ozawa:they’re doing and they’re nervous and they’re trying to
Matthew Ozawa:figure it out and they’re not willing to go beyond a certain
Matthew Ozawa:comfort zone, and so I really kind of say look this is the
Matthew Ozawa:standard. We all gotta come up to it.
Steve Hendershot:If you hear that as a performer or a costume
Steve Hendershot:designer or a set designer, maybe that philosophy is a
Steve Hendershot:little intimidating. Maybe it should be. Just keep in mind
Steve Hendershot:that when Matthew Ozawa tells you to challenge yourself, to
Steve Hendershot:venture out into awkward, uncharted waters, and then as
Steve Hendershot:soon as you get comfortable there, to do it all again, and
Steve Hendershot:then again—well, he’s only prescribing the same formula
Steve Hendershot:that’s worked so well for him. He’ll even understand if you
Steve Hendershot:want to quit—just don’t do it until you’ve absolutely mastered
Steve Hendershot:your role.
Clare Hendershot:For more on Matthew Ozawa, visit Ced
Clare Hendershot:rCathedral.com. And check out hi opera at the Lyric this se
Clare Hendershot:son! We’ve got a ticket
Steve Hendershot:At the end of every episode, we feature a song
Steve Hendershot:from a great Great Lakes artist. This week it’s Eighth B
Steve Hendershot:ackbird, a four-time Grammy-w nning ensemble, based in
Steve Hendershot:hicago, that collaborated with Matthew Ozawa this year for
Steve Hendershot:shows at Carnegie Hall in New York and the Kennedy Center in
Steve Hendershot:Washington. The song is Checkered Shade by composer Timo
Steve Hendershot:Andres, from the Eighth lackbird album Hand Eye, releas
Steve Hendershot:d last spring on Cedille Reco ds. You can buy the record on iT
Steve Hendershot:nes or Amazon, or stream t on Spotify or Apple
Clare Hendershot:Cedar Cathedral was produced this week
Clare Hendershot:by us, Steve and Clare endershot from The Diving Bell.
Clare Hendershot:hanks to our friends Eric atkins and Jodi Gage for
Clare Hendershot:ntroducing us to Matthew Ozawa and to Matthew for hanging out
Clare Hendershot:And to the Chicago Police fo the parking ticket we got whil
Clare Hendershot:hanging out with Matthew. A d also to Eighth Blackbird a
