The Connection

by Jack Gelber

Directed by Kristine Landon-Smith

Royal Birmingham Conservatoire

16th October - 23rd October 2019

The Connection  by Jack Gelber set in 1950's New York has a play-within-a-play format, with characters playing producer and writer as they attempt to stage a production about the underbelly of society using supposedly "real" addicts some of whom are jazz musicians. This is an iconic work that is historically important for its disintegration of the traditional relationship between audience and actor and as a work that offered a look into a different side of 1950’s New York that had hitherto not been seen on the stage. I had the privilege of directing this in a collaborative venture between students from the  acting and music schools within the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire . The work merges text and jazz improvisations in this site specific production where we transformed  the East End Jazz club in the Conservatoire into a downtown New York jazz club where the musicians and actors hang out and jam whilst waiting for the connection to give them their next fix.

The original score by Freddie Redd was re-imagined for this production by New York-based composer and saxophonist John O’Gallagher who is a senior lecturer at the Conservatoire .  The music is a continuous feature of the play and is performed in character by musicians from RBC’s jazz department. The music written by Redd is iconic yet still largely unknown to even seasoned jazz listeners, so it was important that the music and instrumentation in this production remained true to Redd’s original score.

I jumped at the invitation to direct this neglected classic as I was very taken with the opportunities that it could provided for cross-course, cross-discipline, collaboration and certainly there was so much to be gained from this cross fertilisation of learning. 

Controversial from the outset for its scenes of heroin abuse and a suicide attempt, The Connection won an Obie Award for Best New Play but was originally stalled by censors and a film based on it managed just two showings before being pulled.