How does the set reflect the lives of the Ogden-Porter family?
In a play like this, it is important not to limit how the audience perceives the characters. Gregory Ramos, the director, and I wanted the audience to look at the space, art work, photographs and books as a part of this family's life as a group not individuals. Where have they been? What is their taste/style? The style is very eclectic and that is deliberate. We wanted to show how their individual personalities have melded to become their statement family.

Did any aspect of the set change from your original plans?
Many things shifted in the process but the final product is very close to my original idea after speaking with the director.

What is your favorite piece of the Mothers and Sons set, and why?
That's a tough one. I don't think I have a favorite piece because it's how it all works together and how it developed over time. The painting over the fireplace is on loan from a gallery in Middlebury and the large poster in the hall is from my husband's office. The chairs and ottoman were purchased but the sofa is from the theatre department. It's not how anything in particular affects the audience, it's how the combination of colors, textures and scale speaks to the characters.

What questions did you ask yourself early on when designing a set?
Because I lived in New York City for about 10 years, I had a strong idea of how this room might work. The biggest question we all had to ask ourselves was where are the windows. The windows had to overlook Central Park but where did it make the most sense for Bud when he talks about Spiderman. When you put a window in a room it impacts the entire use of the space. It's like putting a sofa or bed in a room. Once that happens, it impacts where everything else will go.

How do you know at the end if the design is successful?
When the actors feel as though the space gives their characters "a home" then we have a successful design. The set is as much a character of the show as the actors with lines. The set must ease the audience into the play, compliment the playwright's intent and allow the actors to move freely and with comfort. Like their character, the actor must own the space they are working in. For characters like Katharine, it needs to make a statement not to her liking.

What is Mothers and Sons about?
Mothers and Sons is the continuation of a story Terrence McNally first began telling in 1988 with his short play Andre's Mother. In that play, the title character Katharine, confused, angered, and grieving can't even utter a word at her son Andre's memorial in Central Park. Twenty years later, in Mothers and Sons, Katherine shows up at the home of Andre's boyfriend Cal and finds him healthy and successful with a family. From there, she and Cal try to navigate their way through the conversation she couldn't have two decades earlier. 
 
In a lot of ways this is a play about progress; personal, societal, and cultural. Mothers and Sons uniquely captures the essence of a reshaped world from the perspectives of the four different generations, and shows the long struggle that it sometimes takes for certain cultural paradigms to shift. 
 
What role do you play and how does s/he fit into the story?
I play Will Ogden. I'm the younger husband of Cal, who used to date Katharine's son Andre. The play takes place in our apartment. After an afternoon in the park, I return home with our son Bud to find our unexpected house guest. 
 
What are your character’s strengths and weaknesses?
I'm still making discoveries about this, but I do think that Will's strengths are also his biggest weaknesses. He's a great family man—he loves his husband and his son—they're all he's ever wanted. The problem for him is that since he's so good at the domestic side of this relationship he has a hard time turning that off. It's what keeps him from asking unwanted company to leave so he can get on with the family plans they have. His sensitivity is tricky that way—it's what makes him happy, but it's also what makes him hurt. 
 
What do you find challenging about playing your character?
When I first said yes to this part, I thought I was going to have a much harder time with playing Will. I was fascinated by him and I loved his point of view, but there are moments when he handles things very differently from how Justin would. I was afraid I might judge his point of view. Fortunately, I'm working with three great actors and Gregory is a very intuitive and gentle director. They all have my complete trust and I have no problem being vulnerable and exploring. So as we work, I'm finding some of the similar archetypal material underneath the differences between Will and I, that hopefully will bring truth to my actions.
 
What do you think is challenging/exciting/interesting about Mothers and Sons?
I'm still intrigued by the fact that we're painting such an extensive portrait of the past several decades of gay life in America. I first read Andre's Mother in the late nineties, before Vermont had even passed the Civil Union law. I couldn't have imagined performing it's sequel, as an adult, in an America with federal marriage equality. I am just about the exact age as my character—and have lived through the same years he has, and the play talks about those years extensively. It's very close to my own life in that way. It's the difference between comprehending and knowing. Through research, imagination and sensory exploration, I can comprehend what it would be like to be, Cliff in Cabaret for instance—I can gather the essence of his world. But Will's world I know. Completely. His world is the same as mine, so that's rare and kind of exciting. 
 
What is your favorite line in the play?
This is always a difficult question. There's a powerful speech I give at the end of the play that I personally respond quite strongly to. McNally has given my character some very touching words. If I had to pick one specific line though, it's one of Bud's. He's talking about his extended family, and asks if Katherine wants to be his grandmother. She says that he doesn't know her well enough, and his reply is “I didn't know any of them before either. Family's just grow.” I sort of love that … the idea that family is who you decide to include, not just what you are born into. One of the wisest statements in the play and it comes from the 8 year old. 
 
What do you like about Mothers and Sons?
Mothers and Sons is actually edgier than I originally gave it credit for. I love that. I think in my first few rounds with it, I got a little swept away with its poetry. Here you have this character whose disapproval of her gay son is a huge obstacle—t's been twenty years and she's still struggling with it—and McNally drops her into this epicenter of gay metropolitan domestic bliss. The tension of that premise is tremendous, no matter how polite everyone is.  It's quite satisfying for everyone to have the chance to say their piece.

What is Mothers and Sons about?
I think it’s a play about a lot of things: family, personal grief, and change. Are we able to change? How do we change from generation to generation? How do we mourn?
 
What role do you play and how does s/he fit into the story?
I play Cal. He is a gay man, a family man, a husband to Will, and father to Bud. He was in a relationship with Andre who died of AIDS 20 years ago and is now being visited by Andre’s mother Katharine Gerard, who he has not spoken to since Andre’s memorial.
 
What are your character’s strengths and weaknesses?
Strengths: He’s a nice man.  
Weaknesses: Too Nice…
 
What do you find challenging about playing your character?
The challenge is always to be present and to let the play live every time you step on stage. My challenge with this character is that Cal is walking a fine line in this play. He wants reconciliation but he also wants to avenge Andre’s death.
 
What do you think is challenging/exciting/interesting about Mothers and Sons?
This play sounds heavy and at times it is, but there are also some incredibly funny human moments. I think the challenge is finding that balance and allowing these characters their flaws.
 
What is your favorite line in the play?
Bud: ‘Families just grow.”
 
What do you like about Mothers and Sons?
I am so grateful to be a part of this important play. Terrence McNally shows us how far we’ve come and how far we still have to go. 

What is Mothers and Sons about?
It's about this man named Andre and how he died and his mom who drops in for a visit. Then the whole play unfolds from there.
 
What role do you play and how does s/he fit into the story?
I play Bud. He is the son of Andre's lover and another man. His role is to be cute onstage and not just have grown-ups arguing, because that would be boring.
 
What are your character’s strengths and weaknesses?
My character's strength is asking questions. His weakness is getting out of the tub.
 
What do you find challenging about playing your character?
He asks a lot of questions and it is hard not to make my voice go up really, really high. It's also hard to play an only child, because I am definitely not an only child.
 
What do you think is challenging/exciting/interesting about Mothers and Sons?
I feel like I know more about AIDS, but it makes me feel kind of sad. It's a sad play at the beginning, but it's a happy play at the end.
 
What is your favorite line in the play?
I like the line, "Buddy Bud Bud", because I like the way it sounds. It's fun to say.
 
What do you like about Mothers and Sons?
That I'm in it, and the other actors.

What is Mothers and Sons about?
Mothers and Sons is about how the AIDS crisis has affected the people in the cast. In such a short span of time, we went from a full blown AIDS epidemic (which coalesced the gay community) to now having won the right to be legally married and having children. 

What role do you play and how does s/he fit into the story?
Katharine, the mother in Mothers and Sons, lost her son to AIDS twenty years ago. She comes to New York to return her son's diary to Cal, who was her son's lover. Cal is now married to Will and they have a son Bud. Katharine had been living in Dallas and caring for her husband who had lung cancer. 

What are your character’s strengths and weaknesses?
Strengths and weaknesses? Katharine hates everything! She is a very multidimensional character. Katherine is just coming out from being someone's Mother and someone's wife and is now finding out how to be herself. 

What do you find challenging about playing your character?
For me the hardest part of playing Katharine is finding her prejudices, which are so contrary to what I believe. Going to neutral before being able to embrace the characters differences is a constant discovery process.
 
What do you think is challenging/exciting/interesting about Mothers and Sons?
Terrance McNally is a very astute observer of human nature. He captures so much and is very judicious and economic in what the character says. Being able to trust that economy is what the actor must move toward. That is, of itself, a whole process.
 
What is your favorite line in the play?
Choosing one line would be like asking a mother of many children to name which one is her favorite. Each one has their admirable qualities. 

What do you like about Mothers and Sons?
Catastrophe forces change, sometimes without enough time for natural transitions to ease us through. Changes are coming more and more quickly and we must adapt, learn and change or we will be left behind. The value of love and care and family is truly what will allow for us to transition.

What is MOTHERS AND SONS about?
 
This is a tough one because the show on the surface seems simple, but it's actually very complex. On the level of story, MOTHERS AND SONS is about Katharine entering the lives of Cal, Will, and Bud unexpectedly on an evening just before the Christmas holiday. Katharine is the mother of Andre, Cal's partner in the 1980s, who passed away. We learn that the last time Katharine had seen Cal was at Andre's memorial 20 years ago. Now she shows up unexpectedly to learn that Cal is now married to Will and they are raising a son named Bud. On the thematic level (and there are a number of themes), the play is about facing our past choices and coming to terms with how those choices bear upon the lives we live in the present. It's also about what it means to be a family today. I’d also say the play makes an accurate statement about a generation of gay men who were sadly lost to aids in the 1980s and 1990s and the possibility that that era and those individuals will be forgotten.
 
What do you like about MOTHERS AND SONS?
 
On a structural level I love that the play is so compact. Ninety minutes of pure drama with no intermission! No set changes and no transitions. The action takes place in perpetual present time. Terrence McNally, the playwright, is just so good at crafting a story that unfolds before our eyes while we're spending an hour and a half with these four people. I love the characters in the play. I feel I know them all very well. I’ve personally had or have people just like them in my own life. I lived in New York at the same time that the crucial backstory of MOTHERS AND SONS happened. I am of the same generation as Cal. Of all the plays I’ve directed, I have a very intimate connection to this one.
 
What scares you about MOTHERS AND SONS?
 
The emotions involved in the story for me on a personal level. It will be a real challenge to do the technical work and not become overwhelmed with the emotional content. We have an amazing cast and even in the audition process I was profoundly moved. I’m really looking forward to making the play happen with this cast. I’m always a little scared going into the process of bringing life to a play because like everyone involved, I just want to do the most excellent work possible and continue to grow as a theater maker.
 
What will you be trying to accomplish directorially with MOTHERS AND SONS?
 
We really want the audience to feel the intimacy of this story. The FlynnSpace is perfect for this play. It will be as if we are in the living room of the apartment on the upper west side of Manhattan where Cal, Will, and Bud live.
 
What kinds of conversations would you like the audience to have after experiencing this play?
 
Oh boy, where to start? I hope that the audience can reflect upon the idea of acceptance. Accepting our past and our present—being able to live with our choices and then make amends for the past choices we made that might not have been the best. I hope also that audiences will reflect on gratitude. One of the many moving aspects of the play is that the character Cal has experienced great loss in his life and yet now he finds himself in a loving relationship with a great husband, and together they're raising a healthy, happy son. Like many good dramas, their lives are affected by an intrusion. In the play that comes in the form of Katharine. She symbolizes a dying social perception that being gay is wrong, or unacceptable, or something to be kept quiet. She was unaccepting of her son. She now has to come to terms with how society has changed and she also has to confront the reality of the happy, healthy family life that, sadly, her son was never to have. The play reminds us that all we have is the present moment and the people that love and support us. The story reminds us that the present moment is fleeting. It's a small play with huge emotions and profound ideas.