12 Angry Man Study Guide

UPSTAGE CONTRIBUTORS MARGARET SALVANTE-McCANN Director of Education; RENE FLEMINGS Director of Instruction and Curriculum; TED SOD Education Dramaturg;

DAVID A. MILLER Education Program Manager; JENNIFER DEBRUIN Education Associate; ALISON BAUCOM Education Assistant;

GEORGE KEVESON, CHRISTINA NEUBRAND, JEREMY THOMAS Education Interns; COVER: Artwork for the Roundabout Theatre Company production of Twelve Angry Men

ROUNDABOUT THEATRE COMPANY 231 West 39th Street, Suite 1200, New York, NY 10018 Telephone: 212.719.9393 Fax: 212.869.8817 www.roundabouttheatre.org

Copyright 2004 Roundabout Theatre Company, Inc. All rights reserved.

UPSTAGE: So, why did you choose to direct Twelve Angry Men?

SCOTT ELLIS: Im always attracted to characters. Ivealways joked that if you give me four people trapped inan elevator, thats interesting to me. So, now its twelveguys trapped in a room. I really like the characters alot. Theyre really a great group of people to be withand explore. Ive always said that the courthouse issecond best to anything on stage. It is theatre.

UPSTAGE: Did you wrestle with the idea of updating itlikeBill Freidkin did in the late nineties?

ELLIS: Well, the thing is, yes, I looked at that adaptationand I talked to playwright, Reginald Roses widow. TheFreidkin piece started with a woman judge, and thejurors now, theyre black and Hispanic and a wholemix, but theyre still twelve men. So, I immediatelydont buy it, because you dont have twelve men on ajury anymore. So, we may have changed it to twelveangry jurors, which could work, but thats ultimatelynot what we decided to do. Its a period piece. I findpieces in period are interesting to see how they stillrelate to today. Do you still connect with it today? Soupdating it was discussed; it was looked at, but thedecision was no. And ultimately I think it was the right decision.

UPSTAGE: When I read the play, the two things that jumped outwere the palpable prejudice and the way this kid is assumed tobe Hispanic.

ELLIS: You dont really know. It is never specificallystated in the text.

UPSTAGE: His guilt was sort of cut and dry with most of themen, probably because they just had a preconceived notion ofhow this kid might act. Did you bring that into the piece?

ELLIS: What I think is interesting is that one walks intoa room with history. All twelve men are going to have ahistory of how they deal with the world, how they dealwith individuals: their prejudices. Everybody is preju-diced, everybody. On one level or another we haveprejudices we deal with. I dont just mean prejudicesagainst black, Hispanic, white, gay or straightits notabout that. Prejudice can be as general as someonefeeling like, I shouldnt be there, Im above this, or Idont have time for this. There are those types of feel-ings, too. Some deal with it better than others. Whatwe bring to the table is so much of what our lives havebeen up to that point. I think the interesting part iswhen those things have to be changed or looked at dif-ferently. How do you change your perceptions? How

CharacterWitness

UPSTAGE GETS THE FACTS FROM DIRECTOR, SCOTT ELLIS

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do you change a prejudice that is deep-rooted, that hasbeen with you, even if you dont know its there? Andtheres nobody on a jury that doesnt come with that.Its human nature. So, how do you take it to the nextlevel and get out of that and yourself and your historyand really be able to look at it clearly?

UPSTAGE: Do you find that because the characters dont havenames its hard to deal with casting? It feels like the play-wright has separated these people, but they dont actually havenames. Do you think that will be a challenge in terms of por-traying it with the actors?

ELLIS: These people dont know each other when theplay begins. The information youre given once thatdoor is shut is the only information you have to startmaking your decision in how to deal with the individu-als and how to deal with your decision of guilty or notguilty. Thats truthful. You go into a room; youre notthere to get to know people. Youre there to decide.The playwright said the reason why he kept the characters as numbers and not names is because when he served on a jury, the jurors were really labeled by numbers.

UPSTAGE: In casting the men, do you think that Juror #8 need-ed a certain personality?

ELLIS: I did. The most important thing with #8 is, itcant be a person who says or presents, I know this istrue, or I know this is the way. Hes got to be as unsureas everybody else as the puzzle is being put together.He doesnt ultimately know and really all that hes ask-ing for at the beginning is to talk about it. Just talkabout it. And I think that you need a certain actor whohas a real presence without that bulldoze strength ofpower. Its not that he says, Im going to make thisright, because I know. Its about slowly getting peopleto start looking at the case in other ways. The actor hasto have enough strength that someone else wouldthink, Ok, I will listen to you, even though I totallydisagree.

UPSTAGE: What about the look of the production? How did yougo about deciding with your design team what it will look like?

ELLIS: We talked about a lot of things, and asked a lot ofquestions: Should we go a little more abstract with thisthe look of this piece? Do you put it on an empty stage?A raked stage with an odd looking table? Somethingthat starts small and widens? Are there walls? Is it justa door? I feel that it is a realistic piece. Im not sayingthat it couldnt work the other way, but I felt thatbecause of what they talk about, I wanted to get a feel-

UPSTAGE FALL 2004 TWELVE ANGRY MEN

ing of being trapped in a room when that door locks. Ididnt want an open environment, which an abstractdesign might convey. They talk of the rain, they talk ofthe heat, they get a drink of water, they go to the bath-room, they throw a knife onto the table; they do thesethings that, to me, are real.

UPSTAGE: Many students read this piece in schools. Where doyou see the value of it for our high school audiences?

ELLIS: Well, its interesting to see how the systemworks. I think when you look at it, you sort of are inawe of the Declaration of Independence and what itsays and how it still stands today. Also, the fact that 12people get into a room and decide someones fate ispretty remarkable. Its not 100% fair, but it reminds usof the idea that were judged by our peers. I think thispiece shows this process in a very realistic, honest way.You dont read this and think, Oh this would neverhappen.

UPSTAGE: Would you ever have the desire to film it? Are youseeing it through a film directors eyes?

ELLIS: Not at all. I think the original film is pretty darnperfect. It is so brilliant how the camera can get inthere and people can sit around the table. I cant havepeople sit around a table. Theyre going to have to bemoving and theres got to be a reason to move. So, itsgoing to be a very different experience I think. l

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1954 Reginald Rose's television play Twelve Angry Men airs on Studio One on CBS

1957 Rose adapts his teleplay to create a film version, he co-produced the film with the star Henry Fonda

1964 Rose's legit theatre version premieres on the West End of London

1997 In response to questions about "reasonable doubt" raised during the OJ Simpson trial, William Freidkin directs a new movie version with a racially diverse cast for Showtime.

2004 Twelve Angry Men premieres on Broadway

Twelve Angry Men a timeline

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UPSTAGE: How did you go about researching this period, NYC1953, and this play?

ALLEN MOYER: Well, I actually applied to the New YorkCity Mayors Office of Film, Theatre, and Broadcastingto see if I could actually get into the original courthousebuilding and into one of the rooms that was pictured inthe movie in the very first scenes -- in the hallway andin the courtroom. I thought it would be irresponsibleto not try to get in there. After a number of phonecalls, I found out that there actually is someone in thecity of New York with this agency whos in charge of thecourthouses. Thats what they do. So they gave me thename of the guy at 60 Center Street.

I went to the courthouse with the director ScottEllis, and Paul Palazzo, the lighting designer, so theycould see what these places looked like. It was a reallyinteresting experience, because we saw a number ofjury rooms. They all are slightly different shapes,because of the way they have to fit into that buildingsarchitecture. There also are these radiating hallwayswhere the courtrooms branch off into a weird system ofstairways and entrances to the jury rooms. I think theymanaged to squeeze two jury rooms in the height of asingle courtroom. I was struck by how faceless and illkept the rooms are, with a broken chair or horribleshelf to put your hat. The rooms were so small theycreated a feeling of claustrophobia. Being in that roomwith these 11 other people for any length of time would

CourtroomDramaUPSTAGE TALKS WITH ALLEN MOYER, SET DESIGNER

Oposite page and above: Research photostaken by Allen Moyer for the set design ofTwelve Angry Men

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especially when youre putting it on stage. I suppose ifyoure making a movie or taking photographs, you cantreally be naturalistic. Even the person with the camerais focusing on a certain thing and is basically selectingan image. So I would say that this is trying to be natu-ralistic, as much as one can on the stage.

UPSTAGE: So, how will you do the rain?

MOYER: Doing rain on stage is not one of the hardestthings in the world. There are windows, and outsidethe windows, hanging above them, are pipes with holesdrilled in them. Then water is run through those with apump that takes the fallen rain from a trough on theground back up to the pipe hanging above. You canactually do it in a low-tech way; however, in this case,because it has to rain for so long, a special effects shophas been hired to do the rain mechanism. When it hasto rain this long there is a lot of water to contend withand a lot could go wrong as water can cause damagevery quickly.

UPSTAGE: It has to be a certain intensity for a long time.

MOYER: Yeah, its a summer storm. We think this isprobably in September at some time. There are a lot ofclues in the play. You get a lot of clues from the jurorwho wants to go to the baseball playoffs. In this year,the World Series wasnt as late as it currently is, so wecan sort of figure out that its in September. And we allknow that in September in New York, it can be incredi-

be particularly unpleasant, I think. And then imagin-ing it without air conditioning or even a fan thatworked made it even worse. And youd go into thebathrooms and there would be a stall or a urinal or toi-let with tape over it that would say Do not use.

The biggest impression that I had coming out ofthe site tour that day was how it seemed that no oneplaced much importance on where people need to sit,decide and discuss someones fate. I thought to myself,What does this tell us about our culturethat wewould put people in here?

UPSTAGE: How will you translate those ideas onto the stage?

MOYER: Its important to me to do a room thats basical-ly factual, in other words, thats a real room that does-nt look like its been theatricalized. Now, thats a littlehard to do, because when youre putting a room onstage in a theatre with wide sightlines, there are allsorts of compromises you have to make to do that.

UPSTAGE: So would you say you were doing a realistic set?

MOYER: I would say its more naturalistic than realistic,and theres a fine line between those two. What Ialways learned was that realism is selective and natu-ralism is not. Now, of course you ask, how can some-thing be non selectiveand the truth is it cant be,

Research photo for the set design of Twelve Angry Men



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bly hot. So, I think its a late summer storm, where itmay not rain for six hours at a strong intensity, butwhen the sky opens up, its a deluge.

UPSTAGE: Are there moments where you can use the intensityto coincide with the action on stage?

MOYER: The setting is often used as part of the story.And I think in this case, its not only that it storms dur-ing one of the most stormy, tumultuous parts of theplot, but it also adds to the atmosphere. When yourein a room like that, when youre tired of being there,and you have the windows open because its really,really hot, when it rains, its even worse. It gets sohumid that you just want to scream. And so youre inthis room for this long period of time, its hot, youdont want to be there anyway even in the best ofweather, and then it starts to rain and thunder on top ofit. You cant even really have the windows open,because its raining in. So you close them and it getshotter and it gets so horribly humid. So, I think itsalso part of that feeling, What else can happen now?Theyre in there a lot longer than they planned. Whenwe first meet them, theyre thinking, In and out. Wecan do this fast. Hang the guy. So, the storm justmakes it more unpleasant.

UPSTAGE: There are many elements that add to the atmos-phere. You chose to use florescent lights in the design. Why?

MOYER: In the script, in the stage directions, someoneflips on the light switch and the florescent lights comeon. I felt strongly that the florescent lights are some-thing that we still do think as institutional and I didntwant to romanticize the lighting fixtures. And I wouldimagine, certainly those rooms now have florescentlights. They probably didnt always, because when thebuilding was built, I dont think florescent lights exist-ed. But they do now, and they probably did in the 50sas well. So, we decided to go with florescent lights.

UPSTAGE: Was there ever any talk of updating the play to thepresent day?

MOYER: We did talk about updating it. But, ultimately,none of us came to the project feeling there was reallyany compelling reason to update it. I think its very

hard to update this play. Its a wonderful piece of writ-ing. These plays that are written in a style that we dontwrite plays in now and are somewhat fragile, in a way. Ithink that if you update them, you have to ask yourselfthe question, Am I serving this play?

Another reason not to update it is because I thinkits really informative to see something from anotherera. We have this kind of reaction to it, like, Oh I cantbelieve these people would be saying that kind of raciststatement or that people have these values. And thenyou somehow connect it to your own time. Im a bigfan of history and what it has to offer to all of us ashuman beings. I think its always good to look back atsomething in order to evaluate where we are now --how far weve gotten or how little weve achieved. Andin many ways I think thats what this play means. l


UPSTAGE: What kind of research do you have to do for TwelveAngry Men?

MICHAEL KRASS: First of all, we agreed that this particu-lar play would be best served by being real people in areal place, in the time when the play was written, 1953.We research then, because we want to make it as accu-rate as it can possibly be. The more specific we can getwith every single detail, the better story we can tell.Just like acting, if you can make a specific choice aboutwhy the actor feels that way, why the character feels thatway, why the character sits down, it makes the storymore real for the audience. Then we research thecharacters. Where is each character coming from?Where are they going? For what purpose do they getdressed this morning? And in this case, for this play,thats all very clear. They got dressed to come to court.Theyve been coming to court for several days. Theyretired and theyre hot. Sometimes the play tells you, andsometimes you have to make it up. In this case, the textcontains the answers. We also go further into eachcharacter. How much money do they have? What dothey do for a living? Do they care about what they looklike? Those are questions you do every single time,and in this case, they matter a lot because they are theonly questions. So you go through the script and seewhat these people do for a living- they dont even havenames, but most characters state their occupationsomewhere in the dialogue.

UPSTAGE: How are you going to specifically approach eachjurors costume?

KRASS: Using all those questions I was talking about.Where does he come from? What does he do for a liv-ing? Does he care about what he looks like? Juror #8,for example, seems to be a fairly careful person, anarchitect, upper middle class, and more likely than not,he wears a suit. The difficult research lied in discover-ing what were the circumstances in being on a jury andgoing to court in the 50s. In the 30s everyone wouldwear a tie and most would wear a suit out of respect forthe place where hes working. Every working manwould own one good suit to wear to church, funerals,and they would wear it to court. So that was the hardestresearch I had to do, and the truth is, I looked at themovie to see what their rules were. And in fact theirrules were some ties, and some not ties, some sportsshirts, some not sports shirts, but everyone had a jack-et. Most people had hats, everyone had long pants andwhite shirts.

UPSTAGE: Do you have access to clothes catalogues of the period?

KRASS: Yes, a lot of them are reprinted. I also haveaccess to old LIFE magazines. I have a lot of books athome and I keep files. I rip out pictures from maga-zines, save post cards, and people send me things.There is an amazing resource in New York City called

Fashion Police

UPSTAGE SPEAKS WITH MICHAEL KRASS, COSTUME DESIGNER


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the picture collection at the NY Public Library on 40thStreet. It is a giant room full of images in folders. I gothere and look through folders called anything at all:New York City Life, courtrooms, costumes, men1950s, architects. I find little bits of informationand detail that make the costumes interesting and specific.

UPSTAGE: How do the actors contribute to the costume designprocess?

KRASS: Thats my favorite part. I can only do so much.The actor needs to make it their own. However, thereare certain things within the big picture that Imresponsible for. One responsibility is to make every-body look different, so the audience can differentiateone character from another. For example, if twelvepeople ask for glasses, and white shirts, and bow ties,we are all in terrible trouble. And they need to under-stand that. Im going to assume that everyone in thisplay is going to want glasses because they are going towant whatever they can in order to have a prop to playwith. There is one person who must have glassesbecause its in the script, and beyond that, Im thinkingmaybe four others might have glasses. And what do I dowith that? Ill give the glasses to everyone who wantsthem in rehearsal. Then, bit by bit, Ill take them fromthe people who dont use them. But, one could have apocket watch, if he is the kind of guy who has a pocketwatch. Is he old-world? Is it his fathers? Is it fromGermany? I love that stuff. It makes the actor an indi-vidual and I am really happy to do that.

I think Juror #8 is more important that he be sim-ple, slightly different. Because its the summer time inthe 50s, I think hes going to wind up in some kind ofvery simple khaki suit, like a summer suit, which wouldbe light colored and slightly wrinkly. I like that ideabecause its a kind of an upper middle class thingbecause they tend to get dirty.

UPSTAGE: What about the business man?

KRASS: The broker has plenty of money and is probablyold time WASP. I was talking to the actor who plays thebroker, he said I was thinking sear-sucker.Wonderful idea. I have twelve people to clothe and Iwant to make them each different, so someone needsto have sear-sucker and thats the one to have it.

UPSTAGE: In your craft, you have to deal with an actors psy-chology and their body, I mean, right down to their underwear.Obviously you have to listen and be passionate. What is yourprocess?

KRASS: I like to sit down with an actor after a couple ofdays of rehearsal and just let them talk at me. They cansay anything they want to and I try to be as accessible asI can. I will ask what colors they hate, what colors theylove, etc. If I have choices to work with, Im happy todo it. Honestly, most actors are not personallydemanding. Most actors are extremely willing to dowhatever the play requires, but they want to keep trackof themselves. And so do I. I dont want them to beuncomfortable or feel stupid.

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ActivitiesBEFORE YOU GOThink about how you define justice as an ideal, and how youperceive it in the real world.

w How do you see justice being demonstrated in your world? Look through magazines and newspapers for examples.

wWas there ever a situation where you were wrongly accused of something?

w How did you feel?w How did you prove your innocence?

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AT THE THEATREListen for information that tells you more about the individual jurors

w How do the jurors personal experiences affect their votes?

w Take note of your own perspective of the case throughout the play. Does it change? Why?

AFTER THE SHOWWrite a monologue from the perspective of the accused boy

w How is he feeling?

wWhat are the things that are affecting his emotions?

w Do you think he is guilty?

UPSTAGE: What does it take to be a professional costumedesigner?

KRASS: I never took a class in costumes. I never went tograd school. So, I would not say necessarily that oneneeds to plunge into school after school after school. Iwent to William and Mary in Virginia. I studied every-thing other than costumes. I studied acting and direct-ing and I did lighting design and a lot of scenery. I hadto write plays. And that broad education has served mebetter than anything would, because I understand theplaywright, I understand the actor. A lot of people whoare interested in costumes think that if they just studyfashion and read fashion magazines, theyll be fine.No, thats the easy part. Thats just research. You haveto know what a plays about. When I went into my firstmeeting to design a play, someone said, What do youthink of the play? I was stunned that anybody wantedme to think about the play. I thought they wanted me togo get costumes. Any kind of training thats aboutreading plays, how to read a play or how to think aboutit and have your own reactions to it will prepare you forthis field. The research is not hard, but what do you dowith all of the research, all of the pictures? How do youchoose which one? It depends what the play is about,how you feel about it and who the audience is. So, thebroadest training in literature and the historical cul-ture and art is the most important thing.

So, there are more paths than simply jumping intograd school and loving clothing. There is a whole otherset of skills that we use and clothing is a tool, in thesame way that lumber or music is the tool to tell thestory. And thats what were doing, were telling a story.l

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12 Angry Man Study Guide