Clarence DarrowTeaching Resources

CONTENTS

Clarence Darrow: Short Biography

Clarence Darrow: Timeline

Trial Cases

Clarence Darrow: Synopsis

Clarence Darrow: Act Breakdown

Themes of the Play

Holding Out for a Hero

Re-Presenting Real Life

Kevin Spacey: Why I Chose to Play Clarence Darrow

Interview with Liz Moon, Marketing Executive

Activities

Making Verbatim Theatre

Bibliography

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Clarence DarrowBy David W Rintels

Teaching Resources Compiled by Roxanne Peak PayneDesign Peter CollinsCover photography Jay BrooksRehearsal and production photography Manuel Harlan

Old Vic New VoicesDirector Alexander Ferris Education & Community Manager Hannah FoskerIntern Ross Crosby

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Clarence Seward Darrow is one of the most famous, revered and controversial trial lawyers in American history. He was active in thousands of trials, many of which reflected social and philosophical issues of the time.

Darrow was born in to a poor family on 18 April 1857 in Ohio. At school he was an unexceptional student, but with his father’s encouragement he read widely from the extensive family library to educate himself. Darrow’s entrance into the practice of law was made more difficult by finance. He left his studies at Allegheny College after one year for lack of money. After three years teaching in a rural schoolhouse and one year at the Michigan University Law School, where he again withdrew for lack of fees, Darrow gained an apprenticeship with a law firm in Ohio. There, he read the law and passed the bar exam in 1878 at the age of 21. Returning home, he married his childhood sweetheart, Jessie Ohl, began his own practice in rural Ohio towns, and fathered his only child, a son named Paul.

In search of a better income for his family and eager for opportunity, Darrow moved to Chicago – then the commercial and cultural centre of the Midwest – in 1887 which was where his career in law really took off. Over the next 50 years he fought hundreds of cases in Chicago and across America, initially as a corporate, then labour and finally as a criminal defence lawyer. See ‘Trial Cases’ for more detail on his career highlights.

Darrow was particularly revered for his support of labor (workers rights), minority groups, poor people, criminals; and, always his defence of freedom. He used the courtroom as a forum to persuade not only the jury but also the entire country of his definition of justice. He achieved mythical status during his lifetime, ‘as a defender of the underdog, a devil’s advocate, a man who stood perpetually opposed to the great and powerful of the earth’ (Maloney in Hochmuth: 1955).

Darrow died in Chicago in 1938, at the age of 81. Thousands of people lined up in the rain to say goodbye. Popular and academic biographies, as well as theatre, film, and television dramatisations of his career and life continue to be made, and have secured his place in American law and history.

CLARENCE DARROW:SHORT BIOGRAPHY

Kevin Spacey

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‘I may hate the sin, but never the sinner’

Clarence Darrow

CLARENCE DARROW:TIMELINE

1857 Born in Kinsman, Ohio, USA on 18 April

1874 Attended Allegheny College and the University of Michigan Law School, but did not graduate from either

1878 Admitted to the Ohio bar

1880 Marries Jessie Ohl

1888 Moves to Chicago with Jessie and young son, Paul

1888 Appointed as a special assessment attorney by Mayor DeWitt Cregier, of Chicago

1892 Becomes Chief Counsel for the Chicago and Northwestern Railway

1894 Pullman Strike. Darrow resigns from his railway job, and represents Eugene V Debs, the leader of the American Railway Union, against the federal government

1894 Darrow took on the first murder case of his career, defending Patrick Eugene Prendergast. Prendergast is the only murder case he defended which resulted in an execution

1896 Ran for Congress as a Democrat but lost to Hugh R Belknap

1897 Marriage to Jessie Ohl ended in divorce

1902 Represented United Mine Workers in Pennsylvania in the great anthracite coal strike

1903 Married Ruby Hamerstrom, a Chicago newspaper journalist

1906 Represented the Western Federation of Miners leaders who were charged with the murder of former Idaho Governor Frank Steunenberg. The trial lasted until 1908

1910 McNamara brothers are charged with dynamiting the Los Angeles Times building

1911 American Federation of Labor (AFL) request Darrow represents the McNamara brothers

1911 Darrow charged with two counts of attempting to bribe jurors in the McNamara case 

1924 Represents Leopold and Loeb who kidnapped and killed Bobby Franks, a 14-year-old boy

1925 Scopes Monkey Trial which tested the new law forbidding the teaching of evolution theory in state-funded schools

1925 Represented Ossian Sweet and co-defendants after they killed a white man in self defence

1925 Retired from full time practice aged 68

1932 Massie Trial in Hawaii, defending an ‘honour killing’

1938 Died on 13 March from pulmonary heart disease, aged 81

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TRIAL CASES

Eugene V Debs and the Pullman Strike The Pullman Strike was a nationwide railway strike in 1894. The strike shut down much of the nation’s passenger and heavy goods traffic. It started due to reductions in wages for employees of 28%, and terrible working conditions. Darrow represented Eugene V Debs, the leader of the American Railway Union, who was prosecuted by the government for leading the strike. Darrow previously worked as a lawyer for Chicago and North-Western Railway Company, but resigned from his job to take up the case.

Debs was arrested on federal charges, including conspiracy to obstruct the mail as well as disobeying an order directed to him by the Supreme Court to stop the obstruction of railways and to dissolve the boycott. Darrow’s defence strategy was not to quibble about the disobeying of an order but to expose the working conditions imposed upon workers, in this case by the enormously wealthy Pullman Company.

After describing the terrible working conditions of Pullman’s workers and their families, he argued that people had a right to strike for just causes, and that adequate wages and safe working conditions were such causes.

The case was dropped during trial, but in a later trial Debs was sentenced to six months in prison.

McNamara Brothers At 1am on 11 October 1910, two explosions blew apart the Los Angeles Times building killing 21 people and injuring a further 40. Darrow reluctantly took on this case in 1911, when he was requested to represent the accused McNamara brothers on behalf of the American Federation of Labor, who appealed to him to defend the labor movement and the innocent.

The defendants had already confessed to the crime before Darrow started work on the case, although most labor supporters in the country still believed they were innocent and rallied around their cause. Darrow realised the prosecution had significant evidence stacked against them and entered guilty pleas on their behalf in

an attempt to save them from execution. The reaction from the brothers’ supporters was devastating and Darrow was jeered by a waiting crowd and shunned by the labor leaders. Darrow never again took another major labor case.

One brother was sentenced to life imprisonment, and the other to 15 years. Within days of the trial finishing, Darrow was charged with attempting to bribe the McNamara’s jury. He quickly became depressed with no funds or allies to make a strong defence. However, in the closing arguments, he defended himself with great force and clarity leading to an acquittal, and much applause in the court room.

Kevin Spacey

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An overview of some of Darrow’s best-known cases, covering issues including racial discrimination, worker’s rights, religion and capital punishment.

Leopold and Loeb Nathan Leopold, 18 and Richard Loeb, 17 were the teenage sons of two wealthy Chicago families, who kidnapped and killed Bobby Franks, a 14-year-old boy from their upmarket neighbourhood. Leopold was a law student at the University of Chicago and Loeb was the youngest ever graduate from the University of Michigan.

Many wondered what could have motivated the two, privileged young men to commit such a terrible act. They both gave full confessions, and when asked why they committed the crime, Leopold said: “a sort of pure love of excitement... the imaginary love of thrills, doing something different... the satisfaction and the ego of putting something over”.

It was generally assumed that the defence would be based on a plea of “not guilty by reason of insanity”, but Darrow anticipated that the jury would almost certainly convict the men and they would be sentenced to the death penalty. Instead, Darrow recommended they pleaded guilty with the hope that they would be sentenced to life imprisonment instead. Darrow also repeatedly stressed the ages of the “boys”, as at that time 21 was the legal age of adulthood so in the eyes of the law they were still minors.

The judge sentenced the killers to life plus 99 years.

Scopes Monkey Trial In 1925 a new law was passed in six states banning the teaching of Charles Darwin’s evolutionary theory in schools because it contradicted the story of the creation in the Bible. A biology teacher, John Scopes, was outraged by the act and decided to teach his students about evolution in his classes. He was arrested for breaking the law.

The court case received a great deal of publicity in the media, and was seen as a theological contest as much as a legal one. Darrow defended Scopes, and took

the opportunity to criticise the logic of the Bible by interrogating the prosecuting lawyer on Bible stories, as well as arguing that the law was unconstitutional because it was designed to benefit a particular religious group, the Fundamentalists. This event led to a change in public sentiment, and increased conversation on the subject of faith versus science.

Scopes was sentenced to pay a $100 fine. The verdict was later overturned on a technicality.

Ossian Sweet Racial discrimination was widespread across America in the 20th century. All-white communities were afraid that allowing black people into their neighbourhoods would lower property values, so when Dr Ossian Sweet bought a new house in a white neighbourhood, he brought his wife and nine other men with him to help defend his property. On the first and second nights that he stayed in the house, huge crowds gathered outside to protest, and started to shout and throw stones. Several shots were fired from inside the house, and a man in the crowd was killed.

The 11 black people in the house were arrested and charged with murder. In court, Darrow argued that there was huge prejudice skewing the case, and that it should never have been brought to court. Darrow’s closing statement, which lasted over seven hours, is seen as a landmark in the Civil Rights movement for African Americans. The all-white jury struggled to reach an agreement, and the judge declared a mis-trial.

Following the retrial, Ossian’s brother Henry (who admitted to firing the gun) was found not guilty on grounds of self-defence, the prosecution dropped the charges for the remaining ten defendants.

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CLARENCE DARROW:SYNOPSIS

The play is a dramatic biography of the life of Clarence Darrow, an American lawyer working in the late 19th and early 20th century. It is performed by one actor (Kevin Spacey) who plays Darrow looking back on his own life. We meet him at the end of his career, and during the play he talks through several of his most famous and groundbreaking court cases, where he primarily represents minorities and the poor as a defence lawyer in court. The play is a combination of biographical material and transcribed speeches and statements made by Darrow in court. In the play Darrow also reflects on his personal life and childhood. The narrative is made up of the events of his life and career, although it doesn’t follow a strictly chronological order. The play was written by David W Rintels in 1975, and is based on Irving Stone’s biography written in 1941 shortly after Darrow’s death.

Kevin Spacey

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CLARENCE DARROW:ACT BREAKDOWN

Act I Darrow’s office

Darrow enters the stage which represents several spaces in his life -his office, the court room, his home. He begins by remembering his early life, his schooling and family. He explains how he entered the legal profession, sharing his father’s passion for justice and being inspired as a young man, watching a lawyer give a speech in his hometown on the 4th July.

He explains how he had little education, spending a year at college and a year at law school in Ann Arbor before receiving his first job in the trade drawing up contracts for horse trading.

He tells us how after a short time, working in his home time of Ohio he moved to Chicago with his new wife Jessie, (his childhood sweetheart) whom he later had a son named Paul with. He describes how at that time there was a terrible court case in the city caused by a peaceful protest where four innocent men, (in his eyes) known as the Haymarket Anarchists were sentenced to death.

He moves onto some of the jobs he took in his first few years in Chicago, starting with a job with the city as a Special Assessments Attorney, and two years at Chicago and North Western as their general attorney, before he gave up his corporate work to defend the labor movement, in particular Eugene V Debs who was accused of leading the Pullman Strike. Darrow walks us through the case and the circumstances of the strikers such as terrible living and working conditions. We hear his address to the jury and the aftermath of Debs’ short spell in prison.

He talks about the kind of work he took on after the Debs case, and gives a few anecdotes from his work during this period. Darrow revisits the Haymarket Anarchists case. He describes how a friend of his became Governor of Illinois, and only after much pressure pardons the remaining accused men.

Continuing with his work in support of labor cases, Darrow enters the courtroom in the midst of the Pennsylvania Coal Miners case, discussing the abuses of the industry, such as child labour and terrible working conditions. When he wins this case, he comes home to an unhappy marriage and him and Jessie divorce. (He later falls in love with and marries Ruby, ‘a newspaper woman.’)

He defends Bill Haywood in the Idaho murder case, and we see many of his in court arguments. He seems to expect to loose the case because of the jury’s personal politics but comes away with a unanimous “not guilty” verdict.

Darrow explains his reluctance to take on the McNamara case and gives details of their alleged crime. During his preparation for the case he struggles with the public expectation and private truth of the case, and eventually enters negotiations for a plea bargain. The first half ends with Darrow leaving the courtroom to face a frustrated and angry crowd of labor / McNamara supporters who feel he has betrayed them with a guilty plea.

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Act II The setting remains the same as Act I.

As part of the backlash of the McNamara case, Darrow finds himself on trial accused of bribery. He hints at how difficult this part of his life was, but proves his innocence with a powerful and evocative closing statement whilst representing himself.

After the bribery trial, Darrow struggles to find work. An old apprentice offers him an opportunity and after many months he begins to work as a lawyer again.

He represents a black man, Isaac Bond, who is unfairly accused of murder with no hard evidence linking him to the crime. Darrow argues this is an accusation purely based on prejudice, and he is frustrated and disappointed when Bond is given a life sentence, although he is saved from hanging.

He mentions some of his other cases and also his other activities in lecturing and debating. He also discusses some of his personal philosophy and beliefs.

He introduces the Scopes “Monkey Trial” which challenged the law banning the teaching of evolution in Tennessee. He interrogates the prosecuting lawyer about fundamentalist Christian beliefs, and shows his distaste for this form of religion.

Darrow remembers Dr Ossian Sweet, and as in previous cases, argues the accusation of murder made against him is based solely on racial prejudice. He discusses racial tension at the time and challenges members of the jury to question their own beliefs.

Throughout the play he reflects on his life, including his achievements in his work and the journey in his personal life. He is particularly proud of his wok saving men from the death penalty.

Finally Darrow discusses his most notorious case, the murder of Bobby Franks by two older boys Leopold and Loeb. The play finishes with his address to the jury, appealing for mercy and understanding for all humankind.

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THEMES

Equality

Darrow had a very clear sense of equality and injustice in the world, and strove to rebalance society by speaking for ‘the poor, for the weak, for the weary, for that long line of men who in darkness and despair have borne the labors of the human race’. Darrow represented many people who were disadvantaged in his society, because of their wealth, education, ethnicity or nationality. He seemed to feel it was his duty

to help those less fortunate than him, to the point that on several occasions he worked for free when his clients couldn’t afford to pay him. Many of the equalities he fought for were included in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. However this declaration was only made in 1948, a decade after Darrow’s death which goes some way to show how progressive his ideas were at the time.

Criminality

Darrow felt very clearly that crime was a result of social and economic circumstances. ‘There is no such thing as crime as the word is generally understood. If every man and woman and child had a chance to make a decent, honest living there would be no jails and no lawyers and no courts’.

He strongly believed that the legal system did very little to prevent crimes taking place. He felt it was more effective to make changes which improved the lives and opportunities of ordinary Americans rather than to improve prisons and laws.

Capital Punishment

Darrow inherited his father’s aversion to the death penalty, and fought to save others from it throughout his life. During the time he was working as a lawyer, the death penalty was a common sentence for murderers and much of the population felt this was a fitting punishment. Darrow disagreed, and saw the death penalty in a very different light, feeling that

transformative justice was much more successful than retributive (an eye for an eye mentality). “I never hesitated to defend a man accused of murder, if only to prevent a second murder, by the state”. In America the death penalty has become much less commonly used, however it is still used as a punishment today.

Conversation starterHow much has the social situation changed in the last 100 years? Would Darrow still be fighting similar cases if he was alive today?

Conversation starterDo you agree with Darrow’s description of crime and what causes it? How does this view relate to crimes such as the one committed by Leopold and Loeb?

Conversation starterHow would you feel about defending a murderer in court? Would you be able to fight their cause? Do you agree or disagree with Darrow’s statement that the death penalty is murder?

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HOLDING OUT FOR A HERO

As a lawyer, Clarence Darrow made a living from championing the underdog, for speaking up against the ‘haves’ and defending the ‘have not’s. He took on the corporate machine and defied popular opinion at great personal risk. More often than not, he won; with his landmark cases becoming pivotal in the development of American law. It’s no wonder he’s widely revered in his homeland and no surprise he provided such a captivating and heroic figure upon which David W Rintels based his play.

‘I am not bound to believe them right in order to take their case,’ Darrow says during his closing remarks in one divisive trial, ‘And you are not bound to believe them right in order to find them guilty. But if this jury should make it harder for a man to be a rebel, you would be doing the most you could for the damnation of the human race.’ In these few words alone, Clarence Darrow hints at the implicit complexity of practising law, whilst revealing some of his rare gifts: a powerful, passionate intellect, a deeply entrenched morality and an undoubted gift for ‘the performance’. Indeed, many of Darrow’s monologues are irresistibly quotable.

It is perhaps this combination that marks Darrow out as a true, radical hero, though he exhibits plenty of admirable behaviours during his long career. At times, he shows wit, warmth, kindness and contrariness; at others, more familiar heroic traits like courage, idealism and self-sacrifice. This sense of modern heroism echoes throughout literature across the centuries, originated by the Greeks as an archetype, The Hero, immediately recognisable and relatable to an audience. There are numerous examples since.

Darrow’s casual disdain for the ‘frozen and adamant’ legal profession reminds us of another well-known civil rights hero, albeit a fictional one, in the lawyer Atticus Finch from Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. In championing the voice of a black man facing down a vicious kangaroo court in America’s racially divided Deep South, Finch, like Darrow, risks much in giving a voice to a minority. Darrow’s belief in ‘doing the right thing’ could also be said of The Crucible’s John Proctor or Far from the Madding Crowd’s Gabriel Oak, touchstones for traditional and tragic heroism, who both exhibit an (almost) unbreakable code of ethics and end up suffering for it.

At a more fundamental level, the heart-on-sleeve courage of little Lyra Belacqua from Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials is at times shattering as she embarks on her quest for enlightenment in a dark world. Treasure Island’s Jim Hawkins, another youthful hero, develops his own exuberant brand of pluckiness to save the day when surrounded by those that should supposedly know better. Even gruff old Beowulf from the ancient English poem shows courage of a sort, albeit a

very muscular, very base kind. How does Darrow’s display of courage differ?

Then there are the risk-takers. Those who, like Darrow, gave something up for the greater good. The German industrialist Oskar Schindler (immortalised in Thomas Keneally’s book, Schindler’s Ark and by Liam Neeson in Spielberg’s film version, Schindler’s List) stood against the might of Nazi Germany to save 1,200 Jews from the Holocaust by secreting them in his enamelware factories.

And just why does charisma so often get overlooked as one of the most potent traits in the hero’s armoury? The wit and sheer lyricism of Prince Hamlet, Ignatius J Reilly (A Confederacy of Dunces) and Holden Caulfield (The Catcher in the Rye) were integral to their tales. Onstage or on the page, Darrow has charisma in spades.

So where might Darrow rank in this impressive list? Could we ever conceive of the Ultimate Hero? For as much as we love to hold aloft the chosen few, all too swiftly it seems, we just can’t wait to see our heroes fall. Arguably then, perhaps, perfection lies in imperfection. Heroes (usually) are human. Even Darrow carries a contradiction or two. He’s a committed workaholic yet neglectful husband; a thunderous orator yet reluctant socialiser; unerringly selfless yet steadfastly proud, ‘one hundred and two men I have defended have faced the death penalty and none have hanged’.

His apparent fallibility – scholars and biographers still debate his tacit compliance in the 1912 bribery conspiracy that nearly bankrupted Darrow and ended his career – gives him a flaw; a chink; a vulnerability. A sense he is, despite a towering wit and canyon-deep intelligence, one of us. And perhaps that is what really marks him out. He’s just a man, a gifted one granted, simply trying to do the best he can.

Courageous, just and magnetically charismatic. Joe Spurgeon discusses where Clarence Darrow fits among the long list of literary heroes, both fictional and biographical, that have shaped the development of our world.

Conversation starterDo you think there is a universal definition of ‘a hero’? Are the behaviours, actions and attitudes of Clarence Darrow typical of heroism in both life and literature? Who are your heroes, both fictional and real?

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RE-PRESENTING REAL LIFE

Conversation starterHow would you feel if someone made a biographical play about your life, or a friend or family member? Would you want to see it? How would you feel if you weren’t consulted?

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One of the most absorbing and inspiring things about the play Clarence Darrow is that we know he was a real person, and the events in the play actually took place. The use of characters based on historical figures in theatre is by no means a new phenomenon, writers such as Aeschylus, Shakespeare and Schiller all used real historical figures as their protagonists in dramatised works.

Another related form is ‘verbatim’ or ‘documentary’ theatre which tends to refer to the origins of the text spoken. The words of real people are taken from interviews with a theatre maker, or existing records such as a court transcript, for example The Colour of Justice which restaged the public inquiry into the police investigation of Stephen Lawrence’s murder. The transcripts are then edited or arranged to create a dramatic presentation. Clarence Darrow is actually a mix of a biographical play and a verbatim play as it uses actual court records in some places, and imagined scenes based on facts about his life in others.

These kinds of play offer us a glimpse of someone else’s life, an experience which is heightened due to the fact that we know the action we are watching is a recreation of real life. But how far can we trust the re-presentation of an individual’s life or actions, particularly if they are not able to endorse or reject it?

As audiences, we tend to trust and expect that we are being told the truth. However, when watching these performances it is useful to remember that whoever the writer is, they will inevitably have an attitude or bias towards the subject matter, particularly as the subject matter chosen is often about an important person or event. In many ways this is an area where theatre and journalism overlap and the theatre maker must adhere to some sort of ethical code if their work is to be taken seriously.

Another issue for the theatre maker is deciding what to include. If they have a whole lifetime, or months of transcripts to distil down into a few hours of speech, what criteria do they use to choose material? Moments of drama? Highlights? Well-known events? A writer will want to ensure the play is dramatic and interesting to watch, but does that mean the final play can be an honest representation of what it’s aiming to present?

In the case of Clarence Darrow it seems clear that the writer has great admiration for Darrow and wants to re-present him to the audience as an accomplished, successful man. The decision to format the play as a retrospective means that we lose much of the struggle that Darrow went through as he looks back on his life with nostalgia. Conversely in The Colour of Justice the aim of the writer is to expose the institutional racism and injustice which was apparent in the police investigation into Lawrence’s murder. As such it’s likely that from hundreds of hours of material, the most extreme examples were chosen to be staged as part of the play. It’s impossible to make a play without bias, so it’s important that theatre makers and audiences are aware of them.

Having said all of this, documentary and biographical theatre gives the audience a window into a life or an event that we may never have seen. It can be a powerful tool for democracy and shine a light on important issues, as well as being an engaging and entertaining form to watch.

Playwright David Hare felt that watching The Colour of Justice enhanced his own understanding ‘as it laid before a live audience all the subtleties and intricacies of British racism, all its forms and graduations with a clarity which I have never seen emulated by television, documentary or newspaper’. Many people may not have known all the achievements in Clarence Darrow’s life without having seen the performance at The Old Vic, in particular some of his powerful speeches in court which don’t quite have the same effect on the page as they do when being spoken out loud.

Verbatim and biographical theatre provokes all kinds of questions about truth, integrity, reality and fiction. It offers a different form for presenting existing material and in many cases might be the most effective way to present it. Clearly, when we attempt to put ‘real life’ on stage, it’s very difficult to resist having an opinion about it.

KEVIN SPACEY: WHY I CHOSE TO PLAY CLARENCE DARROW I first came across the play Clarence Darrow when I was in high school. The one-man show written by David W Rintels made its Broadway premiere at the Helen Hayes Theatre in 1974, directed by the great John Houseman and starring Henry Fonda.

It is now 40 years later and I have come to the decision to tackle Rintels’ play myself. Although it is a daunting part, I have many reasons for taking it on.

The real Clarence Darrow, whom the play is based on, was a unique and courageous man at the turn of the last century. He was a lawyer who steadfastly accepted cases nobody else would take, fighting on behalf of the underdog and standing up for labor unions as well as being a staunch opponent of the death penalty during a career which spanned over 40 years. Through his dignity, intelligence and logic he often managed to convince judges and jurors to change their view, shift their prejudice and opt for a humane punishment on behalf of those he defended.

Darrow’s life has inspired several adaptations, both films and plays, and he has been portrayed by a few of my favourite actors before me, so I feel I am in good company; Henry Fonda, of course, played Darrow when the play debuted; Orson Welles played Darrow in Compulsion, a film based on the infamous Leopold and Loeb murder trial; Spencer Tracy, with his brilliant performance in Stanley Kramer’s classic film, Inherit the Wind, captured Darrow’s passion and commitment like no one else.

I have myself had the chance to explore aspects of Darrow’s life before now. In 1991, I made a television film for PBS called Darrow, directed by my current House of Cards colleague, John Coles. In the film I portrayed three decades of Darrow’s life, until the age of 70. We put a lot of effort into making the ageing process look as convincing as possible, so as not to detract from the narrative.

People often ask me what my favourite film to have worked on is. I usually brush these questions aside, trying not to play favourites, by replying: ‘I hope I haven’t made it yet.’ If pressed on the point, however, I would have to say that filming Darrow, with my amazing co-star Chris Cooper, remains one of the best experiences I’ve had on a project.

I was recently given the opportunity to step into Darrow’s shoes a second time by staging Rintels’ play at The Old Vic. Directed by Trevor Nunn, our 2009 theatrical production of Inherit the Wind remains a seminal moment, so why

have I chosen to portray him a third time? I jumped at the opportunity of tackling this character again, as I continue to find his rich, sympathetic personality and fertile mind intriguing, even though by now he is a character that I have come to know very well. I also feel the play is uplifting – an examination of the best in all of us. This is especially significant when so many of the things we observe and are confronted with in this world highlight the worst of humanity.

Getting up on my beloved Old Vic stage in our 10th anniversary season was also an important factor for me. I moved to London 11 years ago and taking on a play that I feel very close to just seems like a fitting way to mark this decade. The play’s shorter run also allows me to work around my shooting schedule for the third season of House of Cards.

The added challenges of never having performed a one-man show before, or ever having performed in-the-round for that matter, were very appealing to me.

And you know I love a challenge, so here I go!

First published on www.kevinspacey.com for the initial run of the play in 2014.

Kevin Spacey

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What does your job involve? I work with the rest of the marketing team to make the campaigns happen, to sell seats so we don’t have any empty spaces in the theatre when the shows are on. That involves lots of different things like social media, advertising, video trailers.

We work with pretty much everybody in the theatre. The production team give us the show to sell; the stage crew let us know which seats are available and whether there are sightline issues which is really important when we are pricing tickets; we work with box office team on things like customer services and selling tickets; we work with the development team and help send out communications about their events. I don’t think there’s a department that we don’t work with really!

What do you enjoy most about your job? The team, all the people who work in the theatre make it so enjoyable. The satisfaction of knowing I’m a small part of a massive theatre that creates these incredible productions.

What were the key elements of the campaign for Clarence Darrow? This production is a returning production so we had to take that into account. Sometimes that means you’ve exhausted part of your audience, but lots of people want to see Kevin in performance so it’s still been very popular. Last time the show was on it was a really short run which meant some people weren’t able to get ticket. This time we’re in a great position as we’re bringing back a five-star show, and all those people who missed it have another chance to see it.

When building a campaign for a show we would usually start with the play and the author, but in this case neither of those are particularly well known. However, Kevin Spacey is very well known so that really helped in building the campaign and promoting the show. Because it’s a returning production we didn’t have to do a huge amount of advertising, but usually there’s quite a big lead up of about 12 weeks to try and build up our advance as much as possible (an advance is the amount of money you’ve taken through ticket sales before the show opens). So I suppose Clarence Darrow has been different from some of our other shows, but they’re all quite different!

How is theatre marketing different to marketing other products? Each show is different, especially at The Old Vic which means you have to be quite adaptable. There is a kind of formula we use, but it’s not like selling aftershave or a product like that which stays the same, each product is distinct and we have a new one every few months.

What different kinds of marketing do you use at The Old Vic? Traditional marketing tends to be print based, so things like adverts in newspapers or posters on the underground which we do quite often, and we also do posters on railways stations coming into London. We sometimes make radio adverts, although we tend to use these more for musicals than plays.

New media includes things like social media, which is sometimes paid for and sometimes not. We also do big animated adverts, which are on websites rather than being in a newspaper, and we can incorporate trailers into that too. We have an amazing team of graphic designers who are able to create animated adverts and people really engage with those. With new media it can be easier to track how effective it is because you can use code and follow someone’s journey through to booking a ticket. Whereas with print media you often don’t know whether it’s seeing an advert that’s prompted them to buy a ticket, or something else. At The Old Vic we use all of these methods in conjunction with one another. It’s a fine alchemy to get them all working together for each individual production.

What advice would you give to someone trying to market their own show? I presume if it’s a show you’ve made yourself the budget is going to be pretty limited. People always say ‘do some social media’ because that’s a free and easy way of promoting things. A lot of times if you trade on favours that’s a great way to promote something. What that means is if you can agree to promote someone else’s show in exchange for them do the same for yours that can work really well. They might have a list of email subscribers that you could get in touch with, that can be a really effective way of reaching people who are interested in a similar type of show, or equally you can promote each other on social media or by distributing each other’s flyers. Reciprocal things like that are often really helpful. Getting the name of your show out there as many ways and as many times as possible so it sticks in people’s minds and hopefully they buy a ticket!

What advice would you give to anyone interested in starting a career in marketing for theatre? Getting work experience in a theatre is a really good way to start. It’s easier said than done, but if you persevere you will find something. There are quite a few paid internships these days which are a great way to get experience and still be earning money at the same time. Other than that I think it’s just important to be really enthusiastic and see as much theatre as you can so you know the product that you want to market, that’s really important.

BEHIND THE SCENESAn interview with Liz Moon, Marketing Executive at The Old Vic

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Playing with verbatim theatre Select a few short extracts from fictional scripts and verbatim plays (see below for suggestions) but don’t tell your students which is which. Ask them to work on the extracts in small groups for five minutes and then present them back to the class.

Ask students to guess which are fictional and which are verbatim. What are the features which make them think the plays are one or the other? Content? Style? Language?

Use one or two of the verbatim extracts and ask groups of students to rehearse and present them back. How different are the interpretations of the same characters? What clues did they use in the text to make their character choices? Which representation feels the most ‘realistic’? Discuss the ethics of re-presenting someone else’s story, either as a writer or an actor.

Break the group into pairs and ask each pair to tell one another a true story about themselves. It doesn’t have to be anything exciting, and should be no more than one minute long. If possible, get them to make a recording on a phone or camera. Each student should study the other, working on creating a representative character through gestures, physical stance, expressions and speech pattern. You could use mirroring or shadowing exercises with the whole class to support this further if they are unconfident initially.

Finally ask both students to tell their own and each other’s stories and see how similar they end up!

Verbatim Plays The Colour of JusticeRichard Norton-TaylorTribunal play based on the transcripts of the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry. Exploring institutional racism and injustice.

My Name is Rachel CorrieAlan Rickman & Katharine VinerBased on the diaries and emails of an American activist who was killed in the Gaza strip by an Israeli bulldozer.

CruisingAlecky BlytheThe love lives of the elderly on cruise ships, based on personal interviews with the writer. Touching and funny.

The Permanent WayDavid HareThe privatisation of British railways, based on first-hand accounts of passengers, employees and government ministers.

Taking Care of BabyDennis KellyA genre-bending fictional play in the style of verbatim theatre about a young mother convicted of the murder of her two infant children.

ACTIVITIESAlthough Clarence Darrow isn’t quite a verbatim play, it uses lots of similar techniques. Below are some ideas for practical activities you can do in your own classroom, either using existing texts or creating your own.

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Research

You first need to create some material to work with, so begin by choosing a topic or an event as the source material. Ideally you want to record interviews yourself rather than take them off the news, so think of a local topic you could investigate. For example, students could share opinions and stories about bullying, or students could interview family members about their

first relationship, or what school was like when they attended. The best verbatim theatre happens in the present tense as much as possible, so if you can interview people about a current event the performance of the interviews will be much more engaging.

Interviews

Before you start interviewing people, make sure you discuss some ground rules of interviewing, such as making sure the interviewee knows what the interview might be used for, only using material the interviewee agrees to, asking open questions, understanding not everyone will want to be interviewed. Most smartphones have applications that can be used as voice recorders, or you can use a dictaphone.

You may need to interview a few people before you get the material you want. When deciding who to interview, think about friends or relatives who are interesting characters, who are unlike other people being interviewed, or who have a good story to tell. It’s important you get some plot and facts in the interviews which can mean asking fairly boring questions – where they are, what they’re doing, who they’re waiting for etc. Those things are the cement and will help keep the story together.

Creating the play

Before you start to transcribe any of the material, it’s worth listening to everyone’s favourite bits so you all have a sense of the interviewees and content you have. Discuss common threads in the interviews, do many people talk about similar subjects? Are there any dramatic moments or interesting stories? What do you see as the purpose for telling this story, as a group what are you trying to open a discussion about? How can you make sure your story is representative of all the opinions you’ve heard?

Once all of these elements are clear, you may need to take several weeks to transcribe the material you’ve chosen. All the subjects will have spoken naturally, so make sure their dialogue includes all the ums, pauses, slang, regionalisms, repeated words, and other speech mannerisms that happen in conversation. Keep hold of the recordings too, your actors might want to listen to them in the future.

The final stage is to put it all together. Think about it in the same way as any narrative, you need a beginning, middle and an end. There should be a point of climax, but also quieter moments. Play around with timeframes and the order people speak in, and make sure you try things out practically. This is the best way to make sure you have an engaging text. You may still decide to make more cuts, or to bring old material back, just go with what works best.

MAKING VERBATIM THEATRE

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Books Weinburg, Arthur. ed. Attorney for the Damned: Clarence Darrow in the Courtroom (1957) Jensen, Richard J. Clarence Darrow: The Creation of an American Myth (1992) Stone, Irving. Clarence Darrow: For the Defense (1941)Hochmuth, Kathryn. ed. A History and Criticism of American Public Address (1955)Canton, Ursula. Biographical Theatre: Re-Presenting Real People (2011)Hammond, Will. & Steward, Dan. ed. Verbatim Verbatim: Contemporary Documentary Theatre (2008)Darrow, Clarence. The Story of My Life (1932)

Websites www.americanrhetoric.comwww.britannica.com www.biography.com

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