Director Fisher Stevens on Being the Ringmaster of John Leguizamo's Ghetto Klown

About the Author:
While Fisher Stevens began his career on the stage in Broadway shows such as Torch Song Trilogy and Brighton Beach Memoirs, his career is now now equally busy in front of the camera (including a featured part on Lost) and behind it, producing documentaries including the 2009 Academy Award winner, The Cove. Stevens is now making his Broadway directorial debut with Ghetto Klown, the newest solo show from his old friend and frequent collaborator, John Leguizamo. Below, Stevens offers insight into his lasting and mischievous friendship with Leguizamo, as well as how his documentary work helps with the responisibility of bringing John's life story to the stage.

John Leguizamo and I met in 1988 at the Public Theatre doing A Midsummer Night’s Dream together. (He played Puck; I played Demetrious.) We were pretty rambunctious 24-year-old kids and were always messing with each other. As a joke one day, he put itching powder in my jock during one of my quick changes. I went on stage itching and freaking out—realizing this could only be the work of one person. I retaliated by spraying shaving cream all over his costume and entire dressing room. We were both brought up on charges by Equity and almost thrown out of the union, but from there we became best friends.

Three years later, John and I ended up in Wilmington, NC, together filming Super Mario Bros. By then, I had seen him do his first one man show, Mambo Mouth, and he was writing a follow-up, Spic-O-Rama. I couldn’t believe his discipline. While he was writing, I was shopping, playing sports and not thinking about my future. Seeing his show made me realize, "Oh my God. I need to get my life together." Cut to two years ago. I went to see John do a reading of what would eventually become Ghetto Klown. He called me up afterwards and asked if I’d be interested in directing. I liked the show, but I knew it needed a lot of work—and he said, “That’s exactly why I need your help.”

My work producing and directing film documentaries has really been helpful with this play. We’ve approached Ghetto Klown almost like a documentary of the life and career of John Leguizamo. There are 46 years of John’s life to pull from for the story. We had to go back and explore what drove him and made him love his work in the first place.

As an actor, I could relate to the ups and downs John has experienced in his life and career. By sharing my own neuroses, insecurities, sexual hang-ups and relationship problems with John, he was able to open up more. It’s a very personal piece, so if he’s not honest all the time it’s not going to work. John is really digging here and has found a lot of oil.

I’ve directed one-man shows at my theater company, Naked Angels, but nothing this deep. Every single second on stage has to be entertaining because it’s just John up there. In every production, you want things like visuals, projections and lighting to be perfect, but with this I can’t deflect anything to any other performers. During rehearsals I’d give all the different characters notes—John’s father, his best friend Ray Ray, his ex-wife—but then I’d step back and realize that all these notes are actually for him!

We’ve done variations of the show in about 12 cities now, but Broadway is Broadway. This is the big time, there’s no bullshitting, so we’ve made the show as tight as possible. Along the way, Ghetto Klown has become the most exciting collaboration of my career. I trust John, and because of that I open up to him in ways I haven’t done in a working relationship before. John is having the time of his life performing this piece.

I’ve been asked if I now have any interest in doing my own one-man show. The answer is absolutely not! I’d love to direct a musical someday, but I’ve realized that John, with all his craziness, is like his own musical. And I love him for that.