Dramatic Ties That Bind

A Rocky Start Led to Better Days for Actor & Director

When one hears Jeremy Skidmore and Aubrey Deeker describe their professional bond as director and actor, it's clear that the tie is deep and profound -- a kinship forged in the fervent years of attending the same college.

Sparked while working on the same theatrical production.

And while dating the same girl.

From such melodramatic beginnings, a thriving collaboration was born.

Skidmore, the 30-year-old outgoing artistic director of Theater Alliance, was at the North Carolina School of the Arts when he was assigned to direct "A Doll's House." Deeker, now 27, was cast as Torvald, the hapless husband whose wife, Nora, walks out. Both guys say their main objective with that show was "to get through it." They were both dating the woman who played Nora, as was a third guy.

In the years since, their friendship and mutual faith has been renewed often through their work in Washington theater -- including their current collaboration in Theater Alliance's "Blue/Orange."

It's at the point, in fact, where Deeker says that Skidmore is "one of the only people in town from whom I would accept a role without having read the script first."

That trust has paid off. Consider Theater Alliance's 2004 production of the two-character play "Mary's Wedding" by Stephen Massicotte, which received seven Helen Hayes nominations. Deeker had judged the script to be "sappy" and "sentimental," but he credits Skidmore with transforming the piece, thanks to "the utter simplicity with which he encouraged us to work."

Skidmore says: "We made a promise at the beginning that we weren't going to take the easy way out, or make the easy choice -- that anytime we felt inclined to do something that we had done before, to dig deeper. I don't think you could do that with actors you didn't know very well."

Skidmore describes Deeker as "incredibly flexible in terms of the variety of things he can play." The director is only half-kidding when he says Deeker, a tall, slender, fair fellow, "could walk in and audition for the role of a 65-year-old black woman . . . and people would say, 'This could work.' "

The two men agree that the actor can be a compulsive perfectionist in his work. "I would prefer 'proud Virgo,' " jokes Deeker.

"Blue/Orange" is British writer Joe Penhall's play about two psychiatrists in a power struggle over a patient. It runs through June 10 at the H Street Playhouse. Immediately prior to "Blue/Orange" Deeker played Raskolnikov in Round House's "Crime and Punishment" and before that a scheming Catesby in "Richard III" at the Shakespeare Theatre Company.