Ellen Geer (Co-Director of Strife):"You Can Make Cities Out Of Mud"

Show Notes

Dennis is joined via Zoom by actor-director-producer Ellen Geer who is the Producing Artistic Director of one of Dennis's favorite spots in Los Angeles, The Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum in Topange Canyon. Dennis has been going to see plays at the outdoor amphitheater since the early 90's and has seen Ellen perform in scores of shows there as well as seeing just as many that she directed and produced. This season, she co-directed the play Strife by Nobel Prize-winning writer John Galsworthy. The show, about a labor strike in rural Pennsylvania, was written in the early 1900's but feels like it could have been written in 2025. The wealthy board of directors feel like the today's financially insatiable oligarchs and the workers are dealing with the same type of injustices that workers face today. Ellen talks about why she chose Strife for this "Season of Resilience," her own history as an activist and the pleasure of co-directing with her daughter Willow Geer. She also discusses the rich history of her family and the property, which was acquired by her parents in the 1950's when her father, the actor Will Geer, was blacklisted during the McCarthy Era and the entire family was ostracized from Hollywood and their Santa Monica community. In the 1950's-60's, the Botanicum property became a safe place for blacklisted artists to seek refuge and practice their craft. In the 1970's, after Will Geer found fame as Grandpa Walton on The Waltons, the place officially opened to the public as The Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum. Ellen talks about her favorite spot on the property, her encounters with animals like bears, deer, mountain lions and rattlesnakes and the challenges of doing theater in such a unique outdoor place. Other topics include: why her father loved plants, losing all her friends as a child because of the blacklist, Jimmy Stewart being sweet to her on The Jimmy Stewart Show, how the current resistance movement could use some good folk songs, and that time her father taught her that reading Shakespeare could be just as enlightening as going to therapy.

www.theatricum.com