Sabrina Mandell

Q	Briefly describe your background/training.
A	I grew up the child of artist-parents in rural Nova Scotia, where my imagination was nurtured by ghost stories, Acadian mythology, eccentric characters and wild natural extremes of forty-foot tides and wind blown pines along a craggy coast. I spent some years in Montreal performing poetry-spoken word events and devising theatrical shows as part of a youth Theatre Festival called "Creations, etc." and did a bit of college study in Theatre Performance. Disinterested in conventional Theatre I decided to pursue other interests: I went to sea. I worked on schooners for several years up and down the East coast of the United States and got my Captain's license. After a while the desire to perform resurfaced and I spent some time in Charleston SC performing an original solo street-Theatre show. Eventually I decided to move to the DC area where I studied the pedagogy of Jaques Lecoq at The Center for Movement Theatre under the direction of Dody DiSanto. While studying I met a collaborator, Joseph Perna, and we devised a show called "Revolution". Then in a Theatrical Clown workshop at the Center I met my now husband, Mark Jaster, who became my partner in the founding of Happenstance Theater. Much of my "training" has been in-the- field/on-the-job.
Q	How old were you when you knew you wanted to be an artist?
A	I have always known. It was always an integral part of my understanding of my self.
Q	Who is your greatest professional inspiration and why?
A	My partner, Mark Jaster, and my parents because they have all managed to survive, raise families, and pay bills by their art. Despite the struggle of uncertain economic stability they have been unwilling to sacrifice the creative life and have remained committed to their art. True Bohemians.
Q	How do you manage wearing different 'hats' as a self-producing artist? What are your strengths? What are your weaknesses?
A	I learned a great deal about hat-wearing from my mother. Artists have to be chameleons, multi-taskers, visionaries. "Managing" the wearing of different hats is organic. I often have to just accept that certain things are going to take a long time to get done and that I am going to tend to things in an order that is my own construction, which to an outsider looks like total chaos. It's like being an expressionist painter. The tasks are stacked up and I enter the fray flailing, but really I am also composing as I go, thinking always of the ultimate end product, but without a predetermined linear strategy. Each problem is attacked, the distractions are incorporated, there are never enough hours in the day, but somehow the ferocious energy of the creative mind and heart gets it all done. My weaknesses are imprinted in my strengths. I move so fast sometimes I don't think before I leap and this can cost a lot of time in the end. I also have trouble delegating or relinquishing control because so much of my creation is organic that it is hard to transmit the ideas to others or clearly lay out a plan.
Q	As a self-producing artist, what qualities make for a good show idea in your opinion, and what is typically your first step in realizing your artistic vision?
A	A good show idea is a launch pad for the imagination. It is not the whole story. It is a detail that makes the audience fill in the panorama, the fresco, the landscape of story. A good show idea is simple and beautiful, so concrete that it is abstract. The first step I take in realizing a vision is to say yes. Yes to the idea, yes to possibility.
Q	How much material do you prepare for a show, and what percentage of it typically makes it into the final performance?
A	It depends on the luxury of time. If there is time, I prepare tons of material. Brainstorming is bliss. But very little makes it into the show in the literal sense. Basically all the information is collected and then it is distilled into a concentrated dose. I always hope that the simple presentation will transmit all of the layers of research and depth in a digestable portion. Like a well crafted poem, a carefully chosen interjection, a sketch that implies just what is needed.
Q	Speaking as a spectator, what do you look for in performance?
A	Art (meaning some kind of abstraction of the real). Poetry. Elevation. Skill. Craft. Composition. Curiousity and creative problem solving. Full commitment, talent and generosity. Prophecy. Humor. I loathe indulgence, pedestrian physicality, and television acting on the stage.
Q	What makes your work unique?
A	Me. My work is a product of my assimilation of the world, my experience shone through a lens that is my own lens. I strive to translate and communicate my experience in a way that can be understood and this language that arises is as unique as any artist's.
Q	What does 'success' mean to you?
A	It means being able to maintain this life of art-making while being able to eat well, afford a home to live in and travel freely. Discovering meaning and connecting with people are the most immense gifts in addtion to survival.
Q	Why are you doing the Capital Fringe Festival?
A	I do the Capital Fringe Festival because it is a glorious, if not adventurous and challenging, chance to affordably produce and introduce new work to a huge concentration of people right in our back yard. This often leads to further production opportunities and connections with new audiences. It's also a deadline. Knowing that there is a time line concentrates the creative process into a funnel of productivity. I love having that every year to goose me.