Interview: Director Moritz von Stuelpnagel On Collaborating with Elizabeth McGovern's AVA: THE SECRET CONVERSATIONS

Next up at The Geffen Playhouse, the U.S. premiere of Ava: The Secret Conversations opening April 13, 2023 (with previews already begun). Elizabeth McGovern stars as Ava Gardner in this new play that she wrote. Moritz von Stuelpnagel directs Elizabeth and her co-stars Aaron Costa Ganis and Ryan W. Garcia. Moritz made some time between rehearsals to answer a few of my queries.

Thank you for taking the time for this interview, Mortiz!

Sooo, what cosmic forces first brought you together with Elizabeth McGovern?
Whichever forces they were, I was thrilled! I've been a fan of hers for some time, so I was over the moon at the prospect. But by way of a more terrestrial explanation, Elizabeth had come across one of Ava Gardner's biographies, Ava: The Secret Conversations. Because it's structured around the process of writing her biography with her ghostwriter, more than any other it details the tension between her public and private life. She immediately wanted to adapt it and was recommended to me, I'm told, because I work on a lot of new plays. As a newer playwright herself, she wanted to find someone who could help realize her vision for it. We met to chat about the project, and quickly the possibilities of what it could be started to come into focus. Since then, she's been a remarkable collaborator, thoughtful and consistently brave.

Elizabeth both wrote and is starring in the show. Is it a different experience directing the writer of a piece?
You mean, other than watching her do double duty with great virtuosity until my head spins? I'd say it's actually a great asset when the actor doesn't have to interpret what the playwright was intending. But at the same time, she can't have eyes on the whole production and how we're receiving the story, so she's given me a lot of trust as the production takes shape. I just have to be conscientious of when she's wearing which hat: actor or playwright.

If you're chatting with someone who isn't familiar with Ava Gardner, how do you encapsulate who she was?

Ava is often associated with her famous husbands and lovers, but she was one of the most influential actresses from the golden age of Hollywood. Not only because she survived the studio system, which was notoriously exploitative of young women, but because she broke the mold of MGM's acting and elocution school. What you see in her work over the course of her career is a more natural acting style, brought by a woman who was outspoken about her sexuality. Despite mixed messages around sex from her own traditionally religious upbringing, she paved the way for more women to be unashamed of who they are. And yet, her remarkable work in such classics as The Snows of Kilimanjaro, Showboat, Mogambo, The Barefoot Contessa, The Killers, and Night of the Iguana is often overshadowed by her marriages to Frank Sinatra, Artie Shaw, and Mickey Rooney, or her various affairs, probably fueled by the unabashed public nature of how she paraded with them about town or how she fought with them freely. Some of this can be attributed to her drinking, but it's a shame, because none of it really is any of our business.

For the audience members who think they already know Ava's biography, what is this show exploring that will surprise them?

Ava was whip smart, but she was insecure about it -- as she was about many things. She actually took an IQ test, because her second husband, Artie Shaw, relished in making her feel stupid. And the test confirmed that she was wickedly clever. I mention this mainly because I think Ava was incredibly astute about how she was perceived. She was marketed for the male gaze, from her pin-up days during World War II to movies like The Barefoot Contessa, where she was described as the "world's most beautiful animal." Operating within that dynamic, one could argue that she was exploited, or that she was masterful at exploiting it herself. But it wasn't without a good deal of stress and tension with the press. It's for this reason that she left Hollywood to live in Europe. And that tension is also the heart of our play.

What qualities of hers are you emphasizing with Elizabeth?
Her hard-fought outspokenness, her sensuality, her cleverness for sniffing out BS, and the vulnerability she felt in her later years.

Is there a specific time period that The Secret Conversations cover?
Most of the play takes place in 1988, late in Ava's life after she had had a stroke. It's around then that she decided to write an autobiography and she hired celebrity journalist Peter Evans as her ghostwriter. Having been often burned by interviewers, she'd been vigorously opposed to a biography for some time and was gravely conflicted about doing one now. It's unclear whether it was because she needed the money or she felt compelled to document her stories as her memory was starting to fail. But our play is a direct result of what it means that her story is being told from a man's perspective.

Is there an old Broadway chestnut that you'd love to take the directorial reins on? Or do you prefer helming new works?

There's a number of musicals that I'd love to do, and I've got a few (both new and "revivable") in the works. We're facing an important moment in the theater, when we take greater responsibility for the stories we tell, who gets represented, and what values we perpetuate. In that respect, new plays have incredible potential for speaking to the moment and I'm grateful that I've been able to work with some spectacular artists from diverse backgrounds.

What's up next for Moritz von Stuelpnagel?

I'm off to South Coast Repertory to direct the world premiere of Michael Shayan's Avaaz. It's a one-person-show in which Michael plays his Jewish-Iranian mother as she emigrates during the revolution, only to land in Los Angeles where she raises a queer son. It's brilliantly funny and heart-rending. Then, I return to the east coast where I'll be doing the premiere of Mike Lew's tiny father in a co-production between Barrington Stage and Chautauqua Theatre. It's based on Mike's personal experience as the father of a premature baby and living out of the NICU for several months. And in the fall, I'll be back on Broadway with the premiere of Theresa Rebeck's I Need That at the Roundabout Theatre Co and starring Danny DeVito alongside his daughter Lucy. Their chemistry as father and daughter is everything you'd want it to be, so it promises to be a very special show.

Thank you again, Mortiz! I look forward to meeting your Ava Gardner.

For tickets to the live performances of Ava: The Secret Conversations through May 7, 2023; click on the button below: