This week, JustArts had the chance to speak with Paula Plum, director of Brandeis Theater Company's production of 'The Glass Menagerie.' She tells us about her experience directing a Brandeis production and gives some expert advice to young, aspiring actors.

JustArts: What brought you to Brandeis to direct The Glass Menagerie?
Paula Plum: Susan Dibble is the head of the Theater Department right now, and she and I have had a long artistic relationship. We've never worked together, but I've known her for years, and she and I have worked in the same organization. And she invited me this summer to direct the show. I've always loved Tennessee Williams. His women are haunting and disturbed and interesting and complicated, and I thought, "What a great project." So it is Susan, really, who is to be credited with the choice. I didn't choose the play myself.
JA: Have you ever previously directed a production of The Glass Menagerie or anything else by Tennessee Williams?
PP: No, I haven't.
JA: So this was like a foray into this type of American theater for you?
PP: Yes. Although I've acted in Tennessee Williams plays, and I almost played the part of Amanda in The Glass Menagerie, I've never directed it. Primarily I'm an actress; it's just recently that I've been getting a lot of directing jobs.
JA: Do you feel that your production of The Glass Menagerie is unique from others or has a special take on it?
PP: Well we were given a "white box"-I don't know If you know what that is-
JA: No.
PP: Typically, one performs in a "black box," the theater is dark and you can achieve a blackout effect. They just renovated the Merrick Theater over at Spingold [Theater Center]; they renovated it so that it can be a multi-use space for conferences, concerts, theater and classroom use. The walls are all white, and it's not necessarily conducive to theater. But we made it work by-and I think my designers were ingenious-we addressed the white by adding more white, as opposed to working against it. So that the play, which is actually a dream-it's a memory play-becomes much more ethereal because the design is whites and beiges and soft colors.
JA: What first inspired your interest in theater?
PP: [Laughs] Oh my gosh. When I was in Catholic school, I was in sixth grade, 11 years old, and the nuns-this is really groundbreaking for them and totally avant-garde and unexpectedly flexible, let me just underline all three of those-they allowed me, instead of writing book reports, to script scenes from the book that I was reading; cast my friends with myself always in the lead, of course; and act them out in front of the class.
JA: So that was the start of your theater career?
PP: That was the beginning. And I found out that they loved these little bits so much that I wrote and acted out that I got one day-I was doing Mary Poppins, this was before the movie came out, the nuns loved me so much that they had me take the day off of school, and they took my scene with my friends around to all the classes. And we performed it. I got to perform it 16 times. And I discovered that theater could get you out of school. [Laughs]
JA: What are your reflections on working at Brandeis now that the show has been performed?
PP: It was a delight! The students are well trained, they're lovely. They're really over-committed though-I really think they're working all too hard. One of my students is carrying six classes, plus she has a job as a nanny. It's so hard to hold an academic schedule and then rehearse every night until 11 p.m. It's not exactly different, however, from an actor's professional life, because in real life, I had six part-time jobs. So, you know. I guess it's preparing them for a life in the theater.
JA: What advice would you give to an undergraduate theater student interested in pursuing a professional acting career?
PP: Oh! Continue training, don't ever stop taking classes. And the second thing is, theater is a business and you need to have a business plan, period. Most actors go out into the world starry-eyed and don't understand that it's called "show business," not "show art," and it really is important to know how to market yourself.

-Phil Gallagher