A Girl Wrote It: Brian Hanscom, Director

Brian Hanscom is a Maine-born theatre artist and is the Producing Director for Stone Sloop Productions (whose inaugural production, tenderpits, ran at The Theatre Under St. Marks in September 2011). New York credits: Hablo, Diablo (92 St. Y); Cowboy Mouth (Michael Chekhov Theatre Company). Regional credits: Mischief Makers (The Contemporary Stage Company); Almost, Maine (The Arundel Barn Playhouse); 365 Days, 24 Hour Festival (Trustus Theatre). Brian was the Associate Director on Little Rock at TheatreWorks Silicon Valley, and the Assistant Director for Don Marguiles’ Shipwrecked! (Primary Stages), Chasing Manet with Tina Howe, and the world premiere of Walter Mosely’s Fall of Heaven (Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park). He has also served as a teaching artist at Bentley College.  Other credits: Of Mice and Men, A Midsummer Nights Dream (The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey), Hamlet (The National Theater Conservatory), and Red Herring (The Lewiston Public Theatre). His collaboration as the dramaturg and assistant director with P3/East on the new play Flight premiered at the Connelly Theatre in New York. 

• For our production of A Girl Wrote It, you are directing Bekah Brunstetter’s Yes. Can you tell us a little bit about what your process with this piece has been like?

I read the play and thought to myself: I may have had the exact conversation that is at the heart of the play... And maybe more than once... So, I knew the people in the play and then we just went about trying to get these two people, seemingly at odds at first, to find their common ground.

• When did you know that you wanted to be involved in the theatre? How did you get started? What inspired you to direct? 

I guess theater was something I always had a great love for and directing married all of it's best parts together so it became a natural path. 

• Who or what do you consider to have been your biggest creative influences to date? Why?

Seeing amazing plays and every mentor, director and actor who has been willing to talk about and think out loud about what they do and how they approach theater. And of course, the great Darren Nichols whose visual daring is an inspiration to artists everywhere. 

• What kind of writing do you find that you are most drawn to as a director? 

Any writing that speaks uniquely and eloquently about the messy little creatures that we are. That takes a lot of different forms in the shapes of stories, but I like to see people grow and change. That may be just a long way of saying that I like what I like and that's interesting people. 

• Are you working on any additional projects at the moment? Care to share with us? 

I'm gathering the stories of police officers and their families from all over Maine (which is where I'm from originally) and they will become part of a stage production over the next year.