THE CREATIVE WORK OF THEATER MAKER GRIFF BRALEY
New Works
THE LEGEND OF jIM CULLEN by GRIFF BRALEY, music by AARON ROBINSON
Playwriting has been a passion and a joy for over 35 years. I've authored and adapted dozens of works for and with students, along with a number of major works for Heartwood Regional Theater. A constant focus is striving to challenge both actors and audiences. As a maker of theater, conceptualizing, designing, writing and directing all provide an opportunity to synthesize the individual crafts of media, staging, and visual arts with my literary pursuits.
One of my great joys in the theater is the bare stage as it reappears following a production. The empty space, where I am able to begin again.
I advocate for drama that challenges with essential questions, and no assumption of a final or easy answer for any of us. Rather than deconstruct, I feel called to confront the Mystery.
Directing & Designing
THESE SHINING LIVES, by MELANIE MARNICH
After directing over 150 productions since 1984, I love the challenge of refining each new undertaking. Whether creating new unique perceptions in the confinements of our black box theater, or striving with actors to devise and integrate new thinking about performance, the process leads me.
I believe in both the vitality of spectacle, and an intimate connection between actor and audience. My appreciation for the courage and tenacity of fine actors, along with a strong devotion to ensemble process, helps create strong bonds with actors prepared to strive on the stage.
I maintain that our audience deserves our best craft, our highest skill, and our willingness to perform with honesty and integrity.
Teaching & Workshops
For over 30 years, I have created theater curriculum for students and adults, presented to audiences and educators on the importance of dramatic literature and culture, experimented with non-verbal workshops for non-English speakers, and focused on the importance of theater arts in education and community.
My life in the theater includes thousands of hours in the education aspect, founding a non-profit theater now in its 16th season, and constant work in directing and designing.
Developmental or process driven workshops might include: arts planning, visioning, learning and devising with an ensemble, playmaking, and developing modes of creativity within a defined workflow process.
Glad to discuss any needs - just email!
“In the majority of ancient and modern plays it seems to me that what the audience wants to believe is that men have a desire to break the molds of earth which encase them and claim kinship with a higher morality than that which hems them in...[They want to see plays that show] the groping of men toward an excellence dimly apprehended, seldom possible of definition. [Such plays] are evidence to me that the theatre at its best is a religious affirmation, an age-old rite restating and reassuring men’s belief in his own destiny and his ultimate hope.
Maxwell Anderson in “The Essence of Tragedy””