[upbeat music]
- Memphis theatergoers
know Jerre Dye
as an award-winning stage
actor and for his work
with the narrative theater
company Voices of the South.
He's also an
acclaimed playwright,
premiering the coming-of-age
ghost story Cicada
and the Southern drama
Distance in both Memphis
and his current
hometown, Chicago.
Now his career has taken
off on a new trajectory.
Jerre Dye is one of
the most sought-after
opera librettists
in the country.
At the time of this interview,
he's back in Memphis
for the local premier
for The Falling and the Rising,
a powerfully
emotional opera based
on the true stories of
active duty soldiers.
Hi, Jerre Dye. [laughs]
- Hey, Kacky Walton,
how're you doing?
- I'm well, you know,
have you seen the movie
The World According to Garp?
Have you read the book?
- Oh, yeah!
Are you kidding me, yes.
- So there's
something in the book
that I always think
about and it's always
stayed with me about
the arc of your life
and looking back and
thinking about the people
you've met and the
experiences you've had
that are almost
like building blocks
that sort of shape
who you have become.
- Yeah, sure.
- And boy,
looking back on it, you
think, what if I hadn't
met that person or
what if I hadn't--
- Oh, absolutely, yeah, kismet.
- Yeah, how different
would my life be?
- Yeah, yeah, I have no idea
how I got here. [laughs]
And also, you know,
being an artist
and wanting to be
a working artist,
I learned pretty
early on that you,
you know, diversifying
your skill sets is key.
- Yeah!
- And so I've ended up
doing so many different
kinds of things in my life,
and it feels like all of that
has prepared me for this.
- Yeah, exactly.
- That sense of curiosity
about the work is the only,
it's the most sustaining
thing, I think.
- Well, six years ago,
would you imagine--
- No, no!
[Kacky laughing]
Absolutely not, without a doubt.
- We're gonna talk
more about your work
in the opera field
in a little bit,
but I wanted to sort of
go back a little bit.
Who inspired you
to become an actor?
- So my eldest brother is
no longer with us, John Dye,
eight years older than
me, he was an actor
on many television shows.
He was the guy, he ended
up being the go-to guy
for television pilots.
- Ah!
- So he was an amazing
quick study, so all the
way through his career,
when they would fire
someone [laughs],
really often, when
they would fire someone
or they were gonna
replace someone,
they would tap him,
and he would go in
and he would do pilots,
and he would do,
he did pilot after
pilot after pilot,
and working in some
amazing situations,
like a dream life, but they
never made it to air often.
But you know, he made
a life for himself,
it was great, until finally
he was on Touched by an Angel,
and he did that for
I think nine seasons
he was on that show.
- Yeah.
- Yeah, and so when you
have an older brother
that's in the business and yeah,
I was a little kid
watching him direct Grease
at Tupelo Community
Theatre, and yeah,
it was a huge inspiration to me.
- It just rubbed of on you.
- Yeah, I was--
- I gotta do that.
- Always interested in how
the parts came together,
right, how the art gets made.
- Yeah.
- How the soup gets made.
I was always, that was always
interesting to
me, even as a kid.
- Well, I wanna talk
about the transition
from being an actor to
becoming a playwright.
Did you always write,
or was that something
that was nurtured with your
work with Voices of the South?
- Yes, and, I always did,
yeah, I was always a writer
even when I was a little
kid, you know, poetry.
- Oh, really?
- We do those kinds
of things, yeah, yeah, sure.
[both laughing]
I remember taking a
little poetry class
when I was probably, gosh,
I was probably like eight,
and I wrote a poem and remember
the sense of satisfaction
was not, it was unlike
anything I had ever
experienced in my life, yeah.
- So--
- Yeah, so yeah,
and my mother was a
writer, so she had a,
she was a journalist.
- Really?
- Yeah.
And then she had kids,
and she kind of put
her career on hold,
and I think, I believe,
I have to believe that a lot
of it came from her as well,
the feeling of wanting
to be alone with the pen.
- So I wanna know
about, let's talk more
about Voices of the South.
- Yeah.
- These are relationships
you forged in college.
- Yeah.
- That you maintain today.
- Yeah, absolutely,
they're my family.
- Yep, and Gloria Baxter
was a huge part of that.
Tell everybody
about Gloria Baxter.
- Everything, so
I went to school
at the University of Memphis,
Memphis State [laughs]
at the time, and at
that time specifically,
I think that program was, you,
it was very unique for programs
across the United States
in that we were exposed
to lots of things
including some
pretty, with Gloria,
some very rigorous
literature classes
and also exposed to directing
and through Susan
Chrietzberg exposed to dance
and Ann Halligan
exposed to modern dance,
and so we were getting
all of these tools
in a way that I think
in normal BFA programs
people really don't get, and my,
and Josie Helming
teaching Chekhov.
That experience
for me was, yeah,
it was like every part
of my body was waking up.
And Gloria was right
at the helm of that,
and she came up at
Northwestern back in the day
in the '60s when they did
something called chamber
theater, which was at the time,
it was a very '60s idea
that everyone could
get in the room,
and we could take any
piece of literature
and verbatim perform it
and start integrating
it with kind of sonic
ideas and dance ideas
and movement ideas to kind
of make not just a play
but make literature
kind of come to life.
So she was at the
school at the same time
as Frank Galati who
people know who did this
kind of famous adaptation
of Grapes of Wrath.
- Oh, yeah.
- Which I just recently a few
years ago did, was involved
in production in Chicago
which was kind of great.
- I remember reading
about that.
- Yeah, it was great,
it was a great experience.
But so Gloria went
to school with Frank
and all those folks, and
she took that sensibility,
and when she came to
University of Memphis
in the '60s, late '60s,
she kind of evolved it
in her own way, and so with
all of us specifically,
I think, in that
little window of time,
it was like a laboratory
for making art,
and we were learning
how adaptation works.
And yeah, and I
was 19 years old,
and we did a piece,
an adaptation
of As I Lay Dying
and took it to Paris.
- Oh!
- Yeah,
and so I'm 19 years
old, I'm in Paris,
and I'm performing
Vardaman with my fish,
"My mother is a fish," on
a stage at the Sorbonne.
And it was like, I
thought, okay, this,
the rest of my life is
gonna feel just like this.
[both laughing]
Not quite.
But yeah, so yeah, she was,
Gloria was instrumental
in not just giving
us the skill sets
to be able to do adaption
and understand how
playwriting really works
but also exposing us
to the world, like how
big the world really was.
- Yeah.
- And Voices of the South
was formed really out of that.
- Right.
- That core group of people
came together, we
started a company.
Jenny Madden and Alice
Berry specifically started
a two-person company,
and they went
to the Edinburgh
Fringe Festival,
and kind of the rest is history.
- And you were the artistic
director for many years.
- Yeah, and then
eventually what,
even like in the
first two years,
I was living out of town,
I was living I think
in San Francisco at the time.
- Yeah!
- And I would come back in,
and I would direct
shows and whatnot,
and it was like a joy,
it was like a, yeah,
something effortless
about being in the room
with all of those folks.
- Yeah.
- Yeah, I would come
back and direct,
and eventually a few years,
well, several years passed,
I was probably, I was in
San Francisco for five years
and L.A. for about five
years, so about 10 years
almost after the
forming of the company,
I came back and decided to
be the artistic director,
which I did for almost
nine, and it was a joy.
And my skill sets and my
horizons broadened extensively.
You know, you learn how
to change a light bulb
and write a grant and
hire people, and you know,
and build, just build an idea.
It was my second college.
- Wow.
- You know, and it was
my MFA, really is what
it was in a lot of ways.
- So what inspired you to
write your first play, Cicada?
- A small writing
group, a bunch of us
gathered together
weekly, and we just sat,
and it was pieces and
parts and pieces and parts,
and eventually those
pieces and parts ended up
in a drawer, I shelved
it for a while,
and then when I picked it
back up and revisited it,
yeah, I mean, I think
that writing group
really was the birth
of if in a lot of ways,
and also necessity,
right, which I love.
That's my favorite
thing about theater.
I think we, do we need,
we need to do a show.
Jerre, do you
wanna do that show?
Sure, I'll do that, you
know, like you just yes, and,
it's like improve, right?
- Right.
- Like the first rule
of improve is yes, and
to just about everything,
and it was definitely
a yes, and moment.
And then suddenly I was like,
oh, I have a show opening.
[Kacky laughing]
And it turned out to be,
or certainly like locally
it turned out to be a huge,
kind of an odd success.
I see representations of like
Southern plays sometimes,
and you know, it
can get a little,
they're a little thin, you know?
- Yeah.
- Or it's just a little
flimsy, a little cheap
sometimes when the people try
to kind of capture
the feeling, the mood,
the tone of the South.
And I think what the
piece did certainly
when it was performed here
in Memphis specifically,
people went, oh, that's
our, that's us, right?
- Yeah.
- That's our family,
that's who we are that I
recognize, I recognize myself,
which was like one of
the more gratifying
moments of my life, and then
we remounted it a second time.
So again, I got to
kind of clean it up
and get it in good order.
- It won an award.
- It did, it did, the
most amazing Richard,
the writer Richard Bausch--
- Yep.
- Who was previously
I think the Moss chair at
the University of Memphis,
he truly stumbled into
the show one night,
and he came up to me afterwards,
and he was like, um,
I need to talk to you.
It was, what a, again,
angels on the planet.
- Yeah.
- It was definitely,
not unlike Gloria, it was one
of those people that went...
Being an artist is hard
[laughs] in many, many ways.
And you crave that moment
when someone really sees you,
you know, like really sees
who you are and what you do,
and he came up to me
afterwards and he said,
"Hey, I think I wanna
recommend you for this award."
And I really did, I
thought, oh, okay, how nice,
that's lovely, and I didn't
now what it was or anything.
And he said, "Can you send
me a copy of the play,
"and I'm gonna vet it and
then I have to send it
"to the committee
to vet as well.
We're gonna send it to Beth."
- Beth.
- And yeah, and I was like,
okay, great, well I'll send it--
- Beth who? [laughs]
- And they sent me an email
address, and it was Beth Henley.
- Crimes of the Heart
Beth Henley. [laughs]
- Right, and so I was
like, oh, oh god. [laughs]
So I sent it, and
you know, and she,
we were in contact, and
yeah, and then so I won
the award for
Southern literature
from the Fellowship
of Southern Writers.
- Wow.
- Yeah.
- She had nice things
to say about you.
- She said lovely things.
- So now you're a
sought-after opera librettist.
- I'm sought after! [laughs]
- You're sought after,
everybody says it.
- Only on Tuesdays
and Thursdays.
- And you know,
you've even said,
I read a quote from you
or heard you say this
that we are actually in a
golden age of opera in America.
- It's true, and
if it's not true,
I'm gonna keep saying it
'cause I want it to be true.
Yeah, there are more operas,
there are more new operas
being produced in the United
States than ever before,
and really, it's been
in the past 10 years,
I think it's fair to say.
Companies who previously
had never even considered
a new opera, they were
gonna do the Cannon,
and they were gonna
sell those tickets
and get those folks
into the house,
were not even remotely
interested in doing new work.
It's just, it's never been a
part of the culture, really.
- Yeah.
- And that's changed
drastically, and Ned
Canty at Opera Memphis
has really been right
at the forefront
of the people that are shifting
that and making that happen.
So yeah, so I'm working on
many commissions right now
with different opera companies
around the United States.
- So let's see, I think
you have worked on one
about serpent-handling
preachers.
- Yes, I have, indeed.
- You've done an opera that's
a virtual reality opera?
- I have, indeed, yes.
- What in the world
is that? [laughs]
- Yeah, so the composer that
I've been working with on,
so I did a piece of
Washington National Opera,
it's called Taking Up Serpents,
which was about snake-handling
in the American South
with a composer named
Kamala Sankaram.
She is based out of New York.
She is also just
like something else.
She's the coolest person
ever, that's what I tell her.
She and a group
also out of New York
called Opera on Tap, and
they tend to take opera
to places where opera
typically isn't,
so they perform in halls,
they perform in playgrounds,
they perform in, everywhere
you can imagine opera happens.
And they were interested
in integrating technology
with opera in a thoughtful way.
- Yeah.
- And both Kamala and myself
are huge horror fans.
[both laughing]
And we thought, you know
what there's not a lot of
is the horror opera, so
we did a horror opera
that is filmed in 360,
which is kind of a bit
of the Wild West
when it comes to VR
and how it behaves and what
the editing might look like.
And what's so great is that
so much of with the camera
locked down in a 360
scenario and you're looking
all around to experience
with your VR glasses,
the primary, the way to
build narrative the easiest,
the way to build
narrative is sonically.
'Cause if I'm looking this way
and the sound happens behind me,
so sound cues story,
and we thought,
opera is just like
what an amazing way to,
let's figure out
of we can do it.
- Oh!
- So we did, we've done
episode one, and now we're
currently in development
for like four or
five new episodes.
- Oh!
- Each one about,
you know, 10 to 12
minutes, and yeah,
it's called Parksville.
- Parksville?
- Parksville Horror.
- Horror.
- Yeah, yeah.
- Oh, gosh.
- Yeah, it's great,
it's exciting.
- I never thought I would
hear a virtual reality opera.
It's crazy.
- I know!
- Well, the reason that
you got involved in this
to begin with was when
Ned Canty had the idea
for the opera in Crosstown,
in Sears Crosstown Building.
- Correct.
- And so you ended you
writing five separate pieces,
is that right?
- Yeah.
- And you kinda said this was
sorta like grad school to you?
- It was totally grad school,
absolutely, yeah, the--
- You had never
done this before.
- Never, ever, I think, I
believe Ned either saw a play
that I had written or heard, I
don't even know, at the time,
I don't even know if he saw it,
but he was like, "You
write plays, correct?"
And I was like,
yeah, and he said,
"Have you ever thought
about writing opera?"
I said, absolutely not, but yes.
[Kacky laughing]
And he said, "So I've got
this idea of 10- and 12-minute
pieces or kind of easy
to manage in some way."
So he said, "Let's do
10- to 12-minute pieces
with five different composers."
So it was this crash
course, and I got to work
with five composers at one time,
and just to figure out what
that experience was like
or like how that dance happens,
and obviously it was
like so vastly different
with every one of those people.
- Yeah, you said they're
like snowflakes. [laughs]
- They are like snowflakes!
Because you know,
the composer mind,
which is really
different from my own,
it's a mathematic
mind, you know?
They think, they literally
think differently than I would.
So I was adjusting around
that and understanding how,
I feel like as a librettist,
so much of my job
really is to, I'm
inspired, right?
Like, I have to write
something that makes them
want to write music.
- Right.
- You know?
- Yeah!
- As opposed to you give
something to a director,
and a directors directs the
thing that's on the page, right?
- Right.
- They're faithful
to the thing and the structure.
But it's much more
malleable and can change,
you know, with a
composer, so that's been,
that's been a really
fascinating experience.
I keep on, I find myself
staying in a place of curiosity.
I'm learning with each
subsequent production.
- Well, one of the
composers who worked on the
Ghosts of Crosstown--
- Yes!
- Series, you are
collaborating with again
for The Falling and The Rising.
- Correct.
- Which I mentioned
earlier in our chat, so
let's talk about that.
- Yeah!
- I thought it was great
that it was the first ever
commission from the U.S. Army--
- Yep.
- Field Bank, I think?
Is that right?
- Yep.
- So when you were
presented with this idea,
how did you go about deciding
how to tell the story?
- Yeah, interesting, so
Staff Sergeant Ben Hilgert
with the U.S. Army
Field Band and Chorus
is an opera singer,
as many of those folks
that are in the chorus
are, like people with,
I would say there's a
lotta paper in that room.
[Kacky laughs]
A lot of amazing
education in that room and
also professional experience,
among them opera
singers, and he was like,
"You know, we do lots of
different kinds of shows,
but one thing we don't
do a lot of is opera."
And he said, "I'm craving
it, and so I've been given
"the thumbs-up by higher-ups
to go kind of investigate
what that might look like."
So he went to an Opera
America conference,
saw one of the pieces
from Ghosts of Crosstown--
- Oh!
- That was submitted
to the Opera America
conference and performed.
It was an extraordinary
performance,
it really, it was weird.
It sparkled in a
very significant way.
I will never forget it.
And he was in the
audience that night,
and he went to a friend
of his who's the head
of new works for Opera
America and said,
"Who do I need to talk to?"
And she said, "Oh, you
should talk to this guy,"
who was me, who was very
much new to the game.
That was seven years ago,
and so he reached out to me
and he said, "I think maybe
just a 10- or 12-minute piece.
"I don't know what it is,
I think we maybe could
interview soldiers,
what do you think?"
And I said, absolutely,
which is not unlike
what I had done with
the Ghosts of Crosstown.
- Right.
- Interviews as inspiration,
as a starting point for content.
Which again, is not something
that opera typically does.
So the idea of like
adapting a novel,
or this was a movie and now
we're gonna make it into,
or this was, you know,
that has been the mode
for new work a lot
of times with opera,
but new work from community
or new work from interviews
is not something that
typically happens.
So I stuck out
beautifully, right?
I was like, oh, who's
that guy, again.
- Right.
- And so I,
he said, "Let's do this."
He then took this
idea to his superiors,
they gave it a
thumbs-up, pursue it,
and he presented the
10- to 12-minute idea
at an opera, the next
Opera America conference
and immediately had
multiple opera companies
come up to him and say we
wanna support a full length.
So it went from 10 to 12 to 15
to a full like chamber opera.
- Wow.
- So yeah, and so we,
next thing, we went to
Fort Meade and Fort Myer
and Walter Reed and
interviewed soldiers.
- How tough was that?
- It was unknown, right?
So the idea of
walking in the door,
we didn't know
anything to expect.
- Right.
- Like we had no prep
ahead of time with any
of our interviewees.
And they volunteered to come in,
and everyone was
willing to talk, right?
And what was
amazing [laughs] was
they were much more
comfortable than I was.
You know, at the front, I
didn't know what to ask, really.
- Yeah.
- I just was like,
I just kept on be curious,
be curious, be curious.
And then these interviews
started unfolding,
and I have to tell
you, it was like,
yes, moving, hysterical,
and immediately we started
seeing these kinds
of themes coming out
again and again
with each interview
that seemed to repeat,
these kind of ideas
like family and what
community looks like
to people who serve, and
then immediately we knew
that this was gonna
end up being a piece
ultimately about
kind of the distance
between civilians
and service members
and how to bridge that distance.
Because as someone
who doesn't serve,
it was fascinating to
come in and go like,
you know, teach me,
talk to me about that.
The first interview
of the very first day
was a young man named Tyler
who was in a roadside attack,
suffered a traumatic
brain injury,
had been through
many, many surgeries
and had been in a
coma for many years,
sorry, many years, many months,
and had this incredible story
about what that coma
experience was like for him
and what he recalls
and what he remembers
and how the synapses fire,
and we leaned into that story
right of the bat, and we
knew that that was probably
gonna end you being
the arc of the piece.
- Yeah.
- This idea of this liminal
space where an induced coma
places the mind of the soldier.
And it allowed us
a lot of freedom
to also interject
different voices
and different stories
in different areas.
- Yeah, and I love
that fact that you
focused on a female lead.
- We did.
- That was interesting.
- It was in the plan
from the beginning.
- Was it!
- Yeah, yeah, yeah!
Opera needs, what do you say,
opera needs more
kick-ass ladies.
You know?
- Yeah.
- It really needs that voice,
it really needs that space.
And yeah, we knew we
wanted to, and also,
a lot of the interviewees that
we had were something else.
- Oh, yeah.
- Yeah, yeah,
tough and fierce
and smart and yeah.
- And it's being performed
all over the country now.
- It is!
- Yeah.
- It was a co-production, so
the people that came forward
at that opera conference,
so that was Opera Memphis,
Seattle, Opera Seattle,
San Diego, Arizona,
Texas Christian University,
and Seagle Music Colony.
- Wow.
- And they came forward
and they said we wanna
help make this happen,
so we ended up, that is
the most wonderful thing,
the idea that we're
gonna make a thing,
and it is gonna have
all of these moments,
all of these destinations
so that we can also then
tighten it up and
get it to where
it wants to be along the way.
It's also been done,
there was a small tour
in Upstate New York.
- Ah!
- It was performed also
in Peabody music school,
which is a fabulous
prestigious music school.
And there are other places,
so people are already
reaching out to us about
doing it in other locations.
So it has this amazing life.
- Well, you're gonna do
another collaboration
with Opera Memphis.
- I am.
- Maybe tease us just
a little bit of what
that's gonna be about.
- Sure, sure.
Robert Patterson, Memphis's
own Robert Patterson
is gonna be the
composer for that piece,
and it is a story
inspired by 1892,
Alice Mitchell and Freda
Ward, who fell in love.
They went to the
Higbee School for girls
in Memphis, Tennessee,
and it ended in a,
I should probably tease
it, it ends in a murder.
- Ooh!
- So and it was
a very sensational
trial at the time,
and a fascinating,
fascinating story.
- So when do you think that's
gonna be mounted, any idea?
- Well, we're having
the libretto reading
coming up this week,
the first draft,
so it's gonna be in process
for the next year and a half.
- Oh, my gosh, that's exciting.
- Yeah, it is very exciting.
- One other exciting thing, too,
before we wrap it up,
you're about to work
with a Pulitzer
Prize-winning composer,
Jerre Dye, Jennifer Higdon!
- She's something else.
- Wow!
- She's the best.
- What's the story?
- I don't know if I can actually
talk about the story yet!
I can tell you it's
with Opera Philadelphia,
so excited about
it, and very excited
about working with her.
She is, yeah, she is a magician.
- Ah!
- Yeah, she's good people.
She's from the South, too.
- Oh, that's right,
she is from the South.
- Yes, she is.
- Where is she from?
- Maryville?
- Huh!
- Is the true?
Yeah, yeah, I
think that's right.
- Wow.
- Yeah, yeah.
So yeah, so yeah, so
yeah, when we met,
it was like oh, hey, you.
- Yeah, like this was
meant to be. [laughs]
- It was, yeah, it was perfect.
And I had just worked
on a couple of projects,
and again, some people said,
you need to meet Jerre,
he might be a perfect
match for you.
So we are in the, right
now we did the first half
of the piece for workshop,
and now we're moving
into second half for the fall.
- Oh, my goodness.
- Yeah!
- Well, listen,
this is an exhilarating
ride, isn't it?
- It is, I don't, I
truly have no idea
how I ended up here,
but I'm just, yeah,
I'm just happy to be working,
I'm happy to be
a working artist.
- Well, you're a
fantastic working artist,
and I'm glad that you
carved out a little bit
of time to talk to us today.
Thanks so much, and
I can wait to see
what else happens in
your operatic career
and in your theater
career, and it's just
been a real pleasure
chatting with you today.
I wish we had a
whole hour, but--
- I know, I know.
- Thanks, Jerre Dye.
- Thank you.
[upbeat music]
[acoustic guitar chords]