Brooklyn Underground Brings Green-Wood Inhabitants to Life

In a play to wake the dead, the Artful Conspirators are presenting Brooklyn Underground: Theatrical Stories from the Green-Wood Cemetery for one more weekend, with performances this Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. It's a chance to see the history of the area come to life in the spectacular setting of the cemetery itself, inside the beautiful historic chapel.

Director David A. Miller, who is not only the Artistic Director of the Artful Conspirators but also a Windsor Terrace neighbor, answered some questions about the play, working inside the cemetery, and what secrets the neighborhood holds.

How did Brooklyn Underground come to be?

David A. Miller: As a Brooklyn-based theatre company interested in involving the audience in the theatre-making process, we wanted to create a play that was very specific to Brooklyn. Brooklyn Underground was the second in a series of three Brooklyn-inspired plays The Artful Conspirators created. The year before we created Whitman’s Brooklyn, written by Dano Madden, about Walt Whitman’s life and work in the borough. The third was this summer’s Journeyman of Breuckelen, set in Dutch Brooklyn in the 1640s. Not all of our plays are Brooklyn themed but it is certainly one of our interests. It’s a chance to have a dialogue with Brooklyn about Brooklyn. Our next play, Leaving IKEA: a new play in two cantos, which will be produced in May at the Brooklyn Lyceum, tells the story of two couples who are trapped in a blue and yellow purgatory until (or unless) they can solve the problems of their relationship. It’s not Brooklyn specific, but could it be set in the Red Hook IKEA? It most certainly could be.



The Artful Conspirators have done this show before, at the Old Stone House--what's it like to be put it on at the actual cemetery this time?

Last year we did a short run of the first incarnation of the play. We were still discovering things about Green-Wood and about how the play worked. The audience was a mix of some folks who had been to Green-Wood, others who had never heard of the place. We used projected images to create the world of the cemetery. At the cemetery, not only is the use of projections unnecessary—the real deal is right outside the doors of the chapel—we have an audience familiar in some way with the place, even if that performance was their first visit. One section of the play is taken directly from audience surveys and this year’s surveys were very different than last year’s. Another very different aspect is that when we rehearsed in the evenings, often until 10pm, we would be locked in and had to walk through the dark roads to the main gate and had to be let out. That was different.



As a WT resident, have you spent a lot of time at Green-Wood? How does living so close influence your work on this play?

To be honest, one of the reasons I conceived the idea for this play was quite selfish: I had never been in Green-Wood, and I knew that if we created a play about the cemetery then I would have the opportunity to not only go in but spend a lot of time there. Living so close, I do feel like I have a very personal connection to the place and to the history of the neighborhood.

Since characters in the play are bound to share some secrets about Green-Wood, do you have any favorite secrets about cemetery, and the surrounding the area?

I do love the secrets of Green-Wood. I especially love the “secrets” that are out in the open (the misspelling of “chief” on one headstone, for example). One of the out-in-the-open “secrets” of Windsor Terrace is the 9th Avenue entrance to Green-Wood. It’s amazing to me that you can walk just a few blocks south on Prospect Ave West to 20th Street and you are suddenly at this incredible, beautiful, historic landmark. Another out-in-the-open secret: Rhythm & Booze. I really like that it’s a true neighborhood place—not even on one of the busiest streets—and that I know that the Rangers game will always be on.

Remaining performances of Brooklyn Underground take place Friday, September 30 at 8pm; Saturday, October 1 at 3 and 8pm; and Sunday, October 2 at 3pm. Tickets: $20 in advance and $25 at the door. $20 anytime for members of The Green-Wood Historic Fund. Seating is limited, reservations strongly recommended. To purchase advance tickets, call 718-210-3080 or click here to order online.