Marin Arts & Culture MAC_Oct_Nov_2017_final | Page 26

Jasson Minadakis Marin Theatre Company Noah Griffin MA&C: Tell us about your home, how you got started in theatre and your theatre background and education. Jasson Minadakis: I was born and raised in Richmond, Virginia. I attended James Madison University and began to study Beckett and Pinter through a Dramatic Literature course I was taking for my English Lit major. I began to focus my major on Dramatic Literature when I began studying Shakespeare. Going into the fourth year, my advisor asked me what practical theatre classes I had taken and when I replied that I had not taken any, he insisted I take a few before graduating. So, I talked my way into a fourth level directing course and a business of theatre course. And I was hooked. A year later I was beginning an internship at the Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati where I was the assistant 26 Marin Arts & Culture director to Edward Albee at a premiere of his play, Fragments. While I was interning, I helped form the Cincinnati Shakespeare Festival where I would be the artistic director of for 9 years. I then moved to Atlanta to become artistic director at Actor’s Express. From there I was brought to Marin to become the Artistic Director of Marin Theatre Company. MA&C: Who were your favorite actors and directors growing up? J.M.: Peter Brook, Alan Schneider, and Peter Hall were the directors whose work I studied the most closely. I didn’t really have favorite actors. My favorite theatres were the Royal Court in London and Woolly Mammoth in D.C. MA&C: Who and what influenced you the most? J.M.: Reading Beckett and Shakespeare were my greatest influences. My directing mentor, Warner Crockett, pushed me hardest and challenged me to become a leader. Howard Shalwitz was the artistic director who’s company inspired me the most in the U.S. The Royal Court was the theatre that most inspired me to focus on new writing. MA&C: What do you like best and least about working with actors? J.M.: I love working with actors. The greatest joy is assembling a talented cast and staying out of their way. Also watching how a small but precise direction can become production- defining in the hands of talented actors. What I like least is that we do not pay professional actors properly in the American theatre. The best stage actors struggle to make ends meet working