Dramatic Ties That Bind
A Rocky Start Led to Better Days for Actor & Director

By Jane Horwitz
Special to The Washington Post
Wednesday, May 23, 2007

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.

"I love his commitment to the actors and his respect for the actors' autonomy," says Deeker of Skidmore. "You always get the answer you need. You're never left hanging."

"For me, the most important thing with any kind of theater is that I believe what's going on," says Skidmore. "I always believe Aubrey."

LeBeauf, 'Lost' Again

Sabrina LeBeauf has two careers she finds equally satisfying, one as a UCLA-trained interior designer, the other as a Yale-trained actress. She is in Washington now to flex her theatrical muscles as Rosaline in "Love's Labor's Lost" at the Shakespeare Theatre Company's summer Free for All, tomorrow through June 3 at the Carter Barron Amphitheatre.

Her character is one of three ladies-in-waiting attending the Princess of France on a visit to the King of Navarre in Shakespeare's early romantic comedy. "Rosaline is probably the most intelligent -- the voice of reason, the most experienced of the bunch," LeBeauf says.

This "Love's Labor's Lost" is a reprise of the 2006 production in which LeBeauf also appeared -- a psychedelic '60s take originally conceived by artistic director Michael Kahn, now restaged by his resident assistant director, Stephen Fried. The King of Navarre and his friends, a Beatles-esque band, are seeking enlightenment at an ashram when the ladies arrive and Rosaline wins the heart of the King's poetic pal, Berowne.

Many remember LeBeauf as the eldest daughter on "The Cosby Show," but she has worked much on the stage and often at the Shakespeare -- as Cordelia in "King Lear," Helena in "All's Well That Ends Well," Rosalind in "As You Like It" and Beatrice in "Much Ado About Nothing."

"I think all the women are smarter than the boys," the actress says of "Love's Labor's Lost." Of her Rosaline, she adds, "because Shakespeare has given her the final monologue to speak for the women, she seems to have the most important thing to say about love and life experience." ("A jest's prosperity lies in the ear of him that hears it, never in the tongue of him that makes it," says Rosaline, urging Berowne to spend a year using his wit to cheer the sick before he can win her.)

The actress went along last year when Kahn's production traveled to the Royal Shakespeare Company's Complete Works festival at Stratford-Upon-Avon, England. The stage at the intimate Swan Theatre was small, and the trendy ladies make their entrances on Vespa motorbikes. "It was scary," says LeBeauf, "because you think, 'One wrong turn, or if I can't control it . . . .' " says LeBeauf.

The Carter Barron stage will be Vespa-friendly.

"I've worked at the Carter Barron now four times and I love that space, because the people really seem to enjoy it. They come there to have fun," says LeBeauf.

Follow Spots

· Catalyst Theater will donate proceeds from all its pay-what-you-can previews next season to the Capitol Hill Community Foundation's fundraising toward rebuilding fire-ravaged Eastern Market. Catalyst will launch its drive with a benefit matinee of its current show, "The Flu Season," Saturday at 2. Visit http://www.catalysttheater.org.

· Jonathan Tunick's orchestration for the Broadway revival of "110 in the Shade," which just garnered him a Tony nomination, is a slightly expanded version of the one he did five seasons ago for Signature Theatre's re-imagined take on the 1963 show.